It'd be nice if Hillside were to admit its mistake as readily as you have.
I don't know... I'm guilty of confusing a Wyvern with a Hippogryph. Hillside [is accused of] something potentially illegal.
Really, I think The Wyvern's Tale would have been much better served by going directly into legal action. Sadly, an article in the Mountain Express isn't going to do much unless it is a cover story with a cover photo.
Then again, I
did read about it here on enworld before I heard about it at the comic shop, so...
Outrage over Hillside being a d*%$ won't really make a dent in his M:TG crowd -- but, if Wyvern's Tale is assertive, smart and persistent, they can re-capture the board-game / miniatures game market for the whole county. I'm not sure if The Gamer's Haunt is still focused primarily on M:TG.
That means keeping the store open during posted hours, keeping those hours regular, and having staff who will be dedicated to staying behind the counter or helping customers instead of playing games.
Blitzkrieg was a pretty cool little store -- it was clean and had good stock -- but it suffered from employees coming in late or otherwise not keeping to the posted hours. Also, the price they had to pay for rent was probably a constant knife in their eyeball -- which just adds insult to injury when a good portion of your stock goes up in price (Games Workshop) while the amount of disposable income dips a little bit.
Oh -- I just realized that, even though my name is my username, some Asheville folks might not know who I am and where I come from with all of this. Well, my name is Earle, and for a few months I worked for The Sword & Grail on the weekend. I was more of a "placeholder" employee until he could get a new "real" employee. I have also helped out Pastimes at one or two conventions, but I've never worked there, though I did sit behind the counter once when the guy working there had to go to the bathroom. During my three minute stint behind the counter I banned 32 people from the store.
I also do some work at Heroes*Con in Charlotte for a friend of mine. But not much work.
I also used to run a D&D game at Hillside, but we kept getting shuffled around for the M:TG players. Considering how much M:TG players spend, I can't really fault them for that.
Currently, I am the CEO for a professional wrestling organization, which is kind of like LARPing except there's a good chance I will get my nose broken.