MALL OF SHAME

The management team of the Elyria Midway Mall should be putting pen to paper today writing out apology letters. To assist them I will supply a list of just some of the people they should be writing to.

As you have already read, first here on TMC NEWS, Midway Mall officials booted men and women off their property yesterday afternoon while they were waiting in line to purchase the new PlayStation3. These people, the Gamers, had been waiting outside overnight and throughout the day before they were told that neither the Mall nor Best Buy would be honoring the list that they had created the night before. Instead they said that they would allow people to start lining up at 10pm Thursday night. Calls to mall officials went unreturned from the Gamers who were attempting to come to reach a peaceful solution to the situation.

Because of the Mall Management’s unwillingness to sit down and work out an arrangement with the Gamers, NINE Elyria Police Cars were lined up along with mall security for the 10pm rush to line up. Here was their solution. A Lottery. Best Buy past out index cards to the 160+ people now waiting outside the store, they were to write their name down on the card then the first 26 names pulled would be allowed to stay and get their PS3 when the store opened. The problem is, none of the 32 people who had camped out and were on the list got on the Best Buy list.

Ok, so here are some of the people that should be getting letters.
1. Obviously the first 26 people on the list.
2. TMC NEWS, NewsChannel 5 and the Chronicle Telegram. We had much better things to do yesterday then go report on your shameful actions.
3. Mall Security Officers for putting them in the position you did.
4. Finally and most importantly, the Elyria Police Department. Pretty sure they had better things to do with their time and resources then to go baby-sit problems that you created.

Now of course the Mall or Best Buy will never write those letters but we hope that this situation has taught them a lesson for the future. The next time the new PlayStation or X-Box comes out perhaps more planning and organization. Then again, there are plenty of other places the Gamers can take their consumer dollars. Another lesson for the mall officials: you cannot “demand” that a person delete photos that they take from your parking lot. You are within your rights to ask them to leave your property, but to stand there and say “I demand that you delete those photos right now” is simply ridiculous. Oh, and repeating it a couple times doesn't help either. Might we suggest that next time you have a situation like this one that you relax, take a breath and resolve the issues before they get out of hand.