Dara Hannon of Pyrimid Comics & Games in Sierra Vista, Arizona read the recent Talk Backs from Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics (see "Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics on DCI/WPN Tournaments") and David Luebke of Dave's Comics (see "David Luebke of Dave's Comics on WotC Premier Stores") regarding DCI/WPN Tournaments and WotC Premier Stores and had this to say:

In response to Rich Biedrzycki of Dreamland Comics on DCI/WPN Tournaments and David Luebke of Dave's Comics on WotC Premier Stores:

I support Wizards of the Coast for suing the tournament organizers who committed fraud and I hope that they will continue to try to take measures against fraud in the future.  The prizes given for WPN events are supposed to help draw business to a store and increase the number of players for a game which will, in turn, increase the sales of the game.  People who commit fraud like this are hurting not only the 'big company' but the retailers as well.  As was pointed out before, why should a player come to a WPN event if they can just buy the cards off of e-bay.  This is why, as a community, retailers need to try to make sure that those committing fraud are reported and sanctioned in an effort to protect our own business.  

As for the legal responsibility of the stores holding the events, this is honestly the only sensible way.  Wizards of the Coast does not have the staff nor the finances to send an employee of their own to every WPN event in every store in order to help keep the players behaved.  Honestly, even if they did, I personally would not want them to do so because, in order for it to work, they would have to have the power to throw out and reprimand my customers to keep order at the event.  That would be giving up too much power, in my opinion.  The reason the store staff are legally liable for what occurs at events at their store is exactly that.  It's their store, not Wizards, not Games Workshop, no one else's.  It is the staff's responsibility to maintain order, to throw out people who are behaving in an aggressive, ill mannered or illegal way and to call the police if the person will not leave.  

I have done this myself, which is, in my opinion, one of the reasons that the store I work at does not have the problems listed by Rich Biedrzycki and others.  The customers here know that we, staff and owner alike, will not hesitate to ban a troublemaker from the store or call the police for aid if any of us feel it is necessary to maintain a friendly and safe atmosphere.  People have to take responsibility for what they can control.  Wizards of the Coast cannot control what customers do in a person's store but the storeowner and staff can.  Therefore, it makes no sense for Wizards to have any legal responsibility for a situation they cannot control.  Though I still applaud them for stepping up and suing those committing fraud with their product.  

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.