When I’m not enthralling you every second Friday in the North Shore News, I have a public relations business, specializing in things like crisis communications.
There were times over the last month when I felt compelled to mount a kind of North Shore PR rescue to extract Park Royal’s big foot out of its big mouth and get it to leave the indigenous chess players of the mall food court alone.
I can only conclude that Park Royal management collectively lost its mind on or about March 22 when it sent a letter to the folks who had been peacefully playing chess in the mall for 50 years, ordering them to stop taking up valuable food court space or they will have to “reach out to the West Vancouver Police Department.”
Of course the story went national, as Park Royal earned the distinction of committing the worst PR blunder since CP Rail decided to make a point and start bulldozing community gardens along the Arbutus rail corridor, leading to vivid footage of decimated gardens and sobbing children on the six o’clock news.
Both disasters are characterized by the sheer bone-headed image-blind brutality and insensitivity of the perps.
There was no need to resort to the PR equivalent of tear gas and truncheons – both situations were eventually resolved reasonably as anyone with an ounce of patience or foresight knew they would be, so taking a grievous, if not fatal, hit to the brand could have been avoided.
In Park Royal’s case, it kept going from bad to worse. Bad when the West Van cops reasonably responded that it was not a police matter, turning it back on Park Royal to do its own dirty work. Worse when West Vancouver Presbyterian Church announced it was planning a sit-in at Park Royal in solidarity with the players.
When God abandons you then actively turns against you, it’s time to concede.
And that’s what Park Royal did this week by agreeing to move the players to a spot 100-150 paces away from where they were doing all that damage. Some are calling it a draw; clearly it’s checkmate by the players.
But first Park Royal had to add insult to injury by offering the group $500 to go away, as if that would appease either the players or the universally appalled peanut gallery, who took to bad-mouthing Park Royal on Facebook, Twitter, the Sun, the Globe, and above all, the North Shore News. In short, everywhere. For nearly a month.
If we try to look at it from Park Royal’s point of view, the constant irritating presence of a bunch of rumpled chess nerds, increasingly out of place at a fancy fashion mall (as Park Royal now likes to see itself), must have seemed like a situation that needed solving. They were the antithesis of fast food … lingering tea or something.
No matter that they represented a colourful West Van tradition, a living remnant of a simpler, slower time. Stable, serene, civilized. Represented by the staunch senior citizen George Ingham, who’s been playing chess at the mall for half a century. Who is also immensely quotable, with a twinkle in his eye that translates well onto the page.
It’s like something out of Dickens: Mr. Mall Scrooge, meet Mr. Chess Fezziwig. We all know what happens next. The bad guy gets haunted into submission.
It was so unnecessary. Another more enlightened jurisdiction might have seen a PR opportunity: a way to offset crass retail considerations with the softer messages of community, harmony and charity – the real kind, not the $500 buzz-off model. Another more enlightened jurisdiction might even commission a bronze statue of two chess players in eternal contemplation of the next move.
Oddly, Park Royal is capable of enlightened thinking: witness the Village, which has become a destination for families. On a warm day, it doesn’t take long before all the kids are wading in the ornamental fountain. Charming, sun-dappled, non-retail behaviour.
I hope the Mr. Scrooge (or Mr. Hyde, if you like) side of the mall doesn’t feel compelled to call the West Van police to clear the fountain of potential customers or the children of customers.
A plea: if you’re itching to restore order on the plaza, call me first.
I’ll tell you what not to do for free.
Journalist and communications consultant Paul Sullivan has been a North Vancouver resident since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of Madonna. He can be reached via email at [email protected].
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