Meeplemart — Attraction in Toronto

Avoid! Unwelcoming to women and disabled people.

Visiting Toronto, looked up gaming and hobby stores. Since they were unable to accommodate the fact that I’m a person who needs to carry things in a purse, I have to give it zero stars.

I walked in and was greeted by someone from behind a counter. He said, “Just so you know, it’s our policy that all bags need to be checked here at the counter, even purses. So what we do is we put it in this bin here, and keep it underneath here—” He reached beneath the counter and pulled out an open gray bin like the one you put your stuff in to go through the x-ray at the airport. There were at least two more bins in that same cubby, and I know, because it’s in full view of everyone coming in the front door. So, not only would my purse be rattling around, unsecure, accessible to every employee and who knows who else, but every customer coming in could see it there.

At this point, I cut in with a laugh and said, “I’m not going to just hand my wallet over to some stranger.”

“Oh, no,” he said with a smile. “You can take out your wallet.”

(Side note: saying “give us your purse” in a friendly tone doesn’t make it friendly)

So if I wanted to shop at Meeplemart, I would have to remove from my purse everything I wouldn’t want rifled through or stolen, and one of two things will happen:

I have to hold all my belongings in my hands—or at least my wallet, phone, passport, medications, etc. With all that in my hands, it would be impossible to shop. That’s why I have a purse in the first place, to hold all those things. or I have to put all my belongings into my pockets. Which. My dude. If my pockets are big enough to hold the contents of my purse, they’re big enough to steal from you. If you require that I relinquish my purse to you, but you don’t require my husband to hand over his many-pocketed cargo pants or coat, you’re not trying to curb theft. You just hate women.

Asking people not to bring in a large bag or backpack? Makes sense, given the tight space. Asking me to hand over my small, stuffed-full purse that can’t fit anything more into it? Absolutely wild. Saying I can take stuff out of it and just give you the bag? Somehow even more insane. They’re asking people to trust them with personal and valuable belongings in the same breath they’re saying they need those things because they don’t trust us with theirs, and they didn’t seem to have any idea how hypocritical and condescending that is.

It's important to note that this policy disproportionately affects women and disabled people. If you need this explained to you, I beg of you to befriend a woman or disabled person in real life.

Of course, once I left, I checked online, and this policy isn’t stated anywhere on their website. What I did find on their website was a single photo of their store. In it, there’s a person wearing—you’ll never believe this—a purse the same size as mine. Other photos across the internet show people in the store with backpacks. So even doing due diligence, there was no way I could have known about their bag policy before I got there in person.

I wish I had thought to ask if, by requiring everyone entering the store to hand over their bags and its contents, the store was therefore assuming responsibility for whether those bags and contents were damaged or stolen while in their possession. I suspect the answer is no. I wonder if their insurance company advised them that this practice assumed acceptable risk of any lawsuits that might stem from a customer’s property being lost, damaged, or stolen. I suspect, again, that the answer is no. There’s a reason that insurance companies cover theft of inventory but not customers’ personal property.

Anyway. Zero stars. I found other gaming and hobby stores in the area that didn’t demand that I give...

If you're looking for a place that will make you feel like a criminal as soon as you walk in, then this is the place for you.

Drove in from Mississauga yesterday with the sole purpose of visiting this store and spending several hundreds of dollars on board games and accessories that I've been having issues finding elsewhere. After which, our intention was to spend the remainder of the afternoon exploring the neighbourhood and giving other local businesses some of our business.

Unfortunately, as soon as my wife and I walked in, she was asked to leave her (small) purse at the front counter. Having never been asked such a ludicrous thing from any other establishment before, she immediately refused. We were then told that if she didn't leave it at the counter, she could not enter the store. A second employee (I'm guessing the owner) joined in the "conversation" and told us that the policy has been in place for over 10 years. We then told them that we drove in from Mississauga with the explicit purpose of visiting their store and to make some purchases and suggested that they could surely make an exception. Nope, they would not budge. So we left.

Not only did we leave that store, we went back to our car, paid for the 10 minutes of parking we had incurred and drove back home. Sorry to the other business in the neighbourhood that didn't get our business. We were in no mood to explore, shop and spend money after that.

To the owner who will surely respond to this review with the standard canned response he has responded to countless other similar reviews with: You very clearly did not trust us yet you expected us to trust YOU with our belongings? Isn't that a bit of an oxymoron? And if you have so many cameras covering the entire store that have protected a (surely exaggerated) "150,000" customer bags since the policy was put in place 10 years ago, then why do you need such a ridiculously stringent and draconian bag policy? Can't you just use those same cameras you watch your customers bags with to make sure customers aren't stealing from you?

Thanks to your asinine policy and how you treated us, you will never see us again in your store. If I could give you zero...

Previously had shopped at Meeplemart once or twice, didn't really think about it one way or the other- there was a good selection of board games but ultimately I could get most of them closer to where I live for similar prices. Additionally I had some bad experiences the last times I shopped there, so I pretty much wrote off going back. But recently I heard they were getting an exa-Arcadia, to which my reaction was: "wait, they have arcade games?"

Turns out it's mostly pinball, but still pretty cool to see. Shame that the exa's buttons are american-style and don't feel the greatest (and the stick is a bat top which is eh, but thats more personal preference), but its cool it exists in toronto at all. I'd be interested to see if they get more games on it, right now all that's on it is Dodonpachi SDOJ which personally isn't my favourite shmup; however I will be keeping up to see if they get more machines or games added to the exa. Pricing per game was fair, seems to be a dollar per token more or less. Not many arcades around here with things I actually end up wanting to play so hard to compare.

To review the rest of the store as well, I was pretty impressed to see the scope of the store branch out a lot since last time I visited. Seems like the gunpla/model section expanded a lot, and there's some things I was surprised to see (having some darius and r-type models is pretty cool). There's also a lot more warhammer/tabletop game stuff than I remember, which isn't totally my thing but it's definitely one of the best selections i've seen in a physical store. Pricing seemed mixed, there were a few things that seemed worth the money and others that seemed overpriced compared to other stores.

Overall I was pretty impressed by Meeplemart, even if my previous experiences were mixed I think the store is generally a cool place to look around now with a lot of stock. It's pretty impressive what they managed to do with the basement space they have, and i'd probably take people here over other board game stores downtown purely for the variety of things carried. Unsure how much i'd purchase due to some of the prices, but if they got more arcade cabinets i'd at definitely come...