Gaming and escape room business to open in Bonnyville; avoids over $40k parking penalty

Image: Co-owners Brad Brusdeilins, left, Myk Morris, middle, are excited to start their new business Mythik Games, along with future employee Dayton Campeau, right.

Bonnyville will soon have a trendy gaming space.

A locally owned business Mythik Games Inc. is moving into the basement of the Executive Centre, a space for escape rooms and gaming rooms.

Co-owners Myk Morris and Brad Brusdeilins are hoping to open in August.

Morris said that similar companies either specialize in escape rooms or board games spaces, but they decided to combine the two.

The idea with the game room is once you pay for a table, you can pick any game you’d like to play.

“My research found out that a lot of companies are doing one or the other. And I thought, well it’s entertainment. Why can’t you do it together?” Morris said.

“They’re both something I’m passionate about anyway. I just put the plan together and did the research for both separately and kind of combined them.”

Mythik Games will have between 3-5 escape rooms, a themed game room for role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons or Magic, and a common board game room.

They’re hoping the board room cafe and first escape room will be finished by mid-August when they hope to open, said Brusdeilins.

“The first escape room is kind of a trial and error,” said Morris.

“We kind of want to just make it our own and try and shift it so that it’s exciting and still challenging.”

Morris and Brusdeilins will also have a room for live streaming games, unboxing new board games, and how-to videos on YouTube.

Mythik Games is contemplating an adult-specific space with a taphouse to support local breweries.

The escape and games room would open in the late afternoon and close at 10:00pm on weeknights. On weekends, Mythik would be open from early afternoon to as late as 1:00am.

The owners it becomes a meeting place for families, and for teens and young adults.

“We want to give people a place to go that’s cheap. A family of four can come in for 20 bucks for three hours and play as many board games as they want,” said Brusdeilins.

“We’re planning on opening workshops and events and classes for students or adult, such as creative writing, or maybe likewise, groups of murder mystery nights or board game events.

“A lot of people that are either shy or don’t get out much or so forth. So it’s nice to have a place where you can go to where you can meet like-minded people.”

Avoiding large financial penalty

Mythik Games faced a crushing financial debt to pay that would’ve stopped them coming to Bonnyville, the owners said.

Due to the limited parking at the Executive Centre, Mythik would’ve been forced to pay almost $42,000 in penalties to the Town for having 24 fewer stalls than required by town bylaws.

The penalty was waived after a lengthy discussion at last Tuesday’s council meeting.

“That would’ve killed every idea, every plan to open in Bonnyville,” said Brusdeilins.

Morris said: “I mean, even if we’re to pay that money, is it going to give us parking right now?

“But we’re glad we’re here and we hope that it succeeds. We hope the community really like jumps on board.”

Comparable cases

In 2016, the Town established a downtown parking overlay that allowed more flexibility, but Mythik’s location in the Executive Centre falls outside of the overlay.

Mayor Gene Sobolewski said during the council meeting that sufficient parking for the Executive Centre, or buildings with multiple businesses inside them is inherent from when they were built.

“We as council, I think it’s incumbent upon us to try and figure out ways that we aren’t going to kill these buildings and leave them vacant at all times because it was deficient when it was built,” said Sobolewski.

The Town faced a similar issue in 2016 with Lasertag which would’ve faced a $69,000 fine for being deficient by 34 stalls.

At the time, town council made a deal with Lasertag to either pay for six deficit stalls, at a cost of $2,041.21 each and/or explore options to rent stalls from neighbouring businesses – or a combination of both, Lakeland Connect reported.

The Morning After

 

Deputy Mayor Elisa Brosseau said on The Morning After that the parking bylaw could need more discussion moving forward.

The Town will review the lease after five years and see if there are parking issues.

“I think it would probably be a good opportunity to take a look at the bylaw. Especially if we’re trying to encourage economic development and have different types of businesses come into town.

“I think it really depends on each business and their needs and when we broke it down with this business,” said Brosseau.