Seniors want card games and want them now




IN DEMAND—Seniors complained about lack of space at the center. Courtesy of Stephen Schafer Photo

IN DEMAND—Seniors complained about lack of space at the center. Courtesy of Stephen Schafer Photo

Agoura Hills is a quiet community, which is why a protest at the city’s Recreation and Event Center on Dec. 18 came as a surprise. Senior citizens gathered in the lobby demanding to use the facility’s larger room for the twice-weekly bridge games hosted on the premises.

Mark Mendenhall, who’s been attending the games for years, said there’s a regular problem of too many players showing up and the recreation center not having room for them all to play.

“My friend up the street told me to go early, and one of the reasons she was saying (that) is because I could get bumped (from the list of players),” Mendenhall said. “And I ended up getting bumped. There were other people, they drove from Malibu, so the people who are there all the time, they’re going to be pretty upset.”

He said the bridge players gathered in the foyer and started demanding the use of a larger room in the facility. He recorded the protest on video with a group of seniors chanting, “We want the big room and we want it now!”

Amy Brink, the director of community services for Agoura Hills, said she is aware of the problem but that due to logistics there’s little that can be done.

“We do have other rooms that are accessible, but it’s not accessible at the time that they want it,” Brink said. “On Fridays we normally have 25 to 30 people that show up, and occasionally we’ll have times where 45 to 50 people will show up, and we kind of have to squeeze them into the area that they’re in. It’s really just a matter of timing.”

Senior citizens pay $15 a year for membership in the Recreation and Event Center’s Senior Recreation Program, but that’s the only fee members are charged. Brink said the center serves as a community center for teens, seniors and private events. With the entire community using the facility, there are no rooms easily available for the seniors to move into.

“We’ve had multiple conversations with (the seniors) about rescheduling. There are other days and times available, but they’ve been doing bridge on Mondays and Fridays for like 25 years,” Brink said.

“We started offering it in the senior room, and then we have overflow space they’re taking over. There’s a room they want, but that room isn’t available until 11 when bridge starts at 10. If we go into other rooms we have to attach a small fee because those are rooms that typically generate revenue and bridge is free.”

Mendenhall said he’s aware it’s an issue of money but believes something can be done to alleviate the problem.

“Not a damn thing got resolved, as best as I could tell. You can see from the video some people were kind of laughing about it, but it was meaningful; they weren’t going up there for no reason,” Mendenhall said. “It’s an ongoing problem, that’s why it boiled out like that. I don’t like to rag, but there are 44 people there. If you call yourself a senior center, put out, you know?”

Brink said the Senior Recreation Program has been growing in popularity. Ten years ago there were fewer than 400 members, she said, and as of last year there were nearly 700. Even so, she said, bridge players being turned away is a sporadic issue, something she attributed to the holiday season bringing visitors to the area.

“I think during the holidays you might see people coming from out of town that spend six months here, six months back east maybe,” Brink said.

“We have a little pop up in numbers or people that are just not working or taking time off and come in. We do see some spikes occasionally. This is not an every Monday situation. It goes in spurts,” she said.