Play Meter

the shopping center.
PLA Y METER: Is it only t he younger people or do
you get any of the older people?
YOOLIN: We get mothers, fathers. We get
mothers now that will go hopping and they will
pecifically say to their children, "I will meet you
here in several hours because I know you will play
and have fun, but stay here because I know you are
alright here. " We have got to have a relationship
with people .
PLAY METER: Have you had comments where
people will ay, "I am happy if the kids stay here
while I'm out hopping .
YOOLIN: Ye and this is omething we've worked
on.
PLA Y METER: Do you think that the other
tennants in the shopping center are aware of the
fact t hat be ide having a money -making busine ,
you are providing a e rvice?
YOOLIN: Absolutely.
PLA Y METER: Because we still have malls that
are re i tant to arcade and yet, you are in essence
providing a ervice for them .
YOOLIN: There you have where it' the old thing of
trying to live down t he thing that's always been
attached to us that we're either an underworld
fi gure or whatever. I'm a family man with five
children and I want my kid to look up to me.
PLA Y METER: In North hore shopping center,
you had been in and out of t he mall physically for 17
year . Because you ran the outdoor amusement
center, you knew by a traffic count, by counting on
your fing r , by t he eat of your pant, whatever,
that it had to be a heck of a pot. You knew that you
had to be ucces ful t here, but, what was your
crystal ball that you could look at Billerica mall and
ay , "I can do w II here?"
YOOLIN: Well, t he normal type of inve tigating i
fine, but I pent many hour driving around the
town and t he ite and when I saw nothin g but
homes, school and t h clo e proximity of all these
thin g -- t hen I di covered that Billerica, which is
nowh e re the ize of Lowell, had 12,000 chool
childre n again t Lowell, which ha a greater
population, but had only 15,OOO--I aid thi i the
time for me to jump in a nd get my feet wet and
tart number two.
PLA Y METER: Billerica i like a bed room
community, no heavy indu t ry?
YOOLIN: ot a great deal of heavy industry, but
it' al 0 a tow n where unfortunate ly, t her e' not too
much goi ng on for the you ng r eleme nt.
PLAY METER: Did yo u vi it t he town father , t he
police chie f, or a nyone e l e in the community to get
a feel before you made a n agree m nt with t he
landlord to put your name on t he dotted line?
YOOLIN: No, I did not do thi . I already kn ew that
kid today really don't have anything that's really
geared toward them, a place where they can go in a
mall.
PLA Y METER: Did you know you were going to
get a licen e before you igned a lea e? How were
you going to protect yourself?
PlAt'M£JER
YO OLIN : I know first of all that I had an excellent
record; I never had any difficulty and I'm open to
investigation. In fact the Billerica police did
investigate me, they did come up and speak with
people and they also spoke with the chief of police in
Northshore and he in turn had a letter issued to the
Billerica police stating that in no way was there any
que tion about my integrity or my business.
PLA Y METER: One chief of police, actually wrote
to another chief of police, telling about the
character of the man that was going to go into their
community?
YOOLIN: Right and I say this with great humility,
but I'm proud that I've never had any difficulty.
PLAY METER: I should think you would be. I've
never heard of this happening before.
Now that you've got these two arcades under
your belt, if you don 't go for this chain, do you feel
that when you're looking for another solo location,
t he two chiefs of the communities will give you the
impetu for your third location? Is it going to get
easier?
YOOLIN: It should get easier because I now have
t he two pots operating and we cooperate through
t he fact that if they find they have a problem within
the mall , and if they want us to close a little bit
earlier or open later, we do. As a fact, we open later
t han mo t other stores because we do not want
children kipping school deliberately to come play
with u .
We've made it a point if a kid comes in and he
does not look old enough, we ourselves question
him and if we don't feel that he belongs here at this
particular time, we ask him to leave . We don't want
every dollar in every way that we can get it, we
want it the proper way and we want good
relationships with the people that we are doing
bu iness with .
PLAY METER: How did you equip yourself,
changing the subject a little bit, and how did you
get to the point where you could service
equipment? How do you keep you r eq uipment run -
ning t he day?
YOOLIN : First of all, I do have somebody that
come in and helps out on his spare time . At the
same ti me he teaches, I ask questions. I find that if I
have a proble m I will call the distributors' work
force and peak with them on the phone and many
time t hey are able to give me an indication over
the phone what to do. If I can't do it and the odds
are against having my moonlighter come in, they
will come out them elves and take care of the
problem.
PLA Y METER: How do you feel about television
games? What have they done for your business in
terms of total gross and what do you feel the roll of
televi ion games i going to be in your arcade two
yea rs down the line .
YOOLIN: I feel that in a few years, they may be the
only thing operating in there because of all the
t hings t hey may be albe to do with them, other than
my pins.
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