ONTARIO – The Ontario community acquired a store dedicated entirely to providing entertainment with the grand opening of HobbyTown on Friday.
Formerly known as HobbyForce, the newly branded and expanded HobbyTown opened at 2400 W. 4th Street in Ontario. Owner Arnie Clawson has been in the business for the past 15 years.
“We were able to find this building, do the renovations and revitalize a vacant building here in town, which is always a positive thing,” Clawson said.
Clawson and his seven-person team have been at their new HobbyTown location since July, working on renovations. The last piece of renovation was completed last week, a glow-in-the-dark indoor miniature golf course.
“It may seem somewhat random,” Clawson said with a laugh. “But miniature golf appeals to a broader category of people. The idea is to draw people in here, expose them to what we do have in the store that they may not know that we have.”
Indeed, HobbyTown carries a myriad of products including remote-control airplanes, helicopters, cars and trucks, model railroading, plastic models, rockets and telescopes, and more.
“We’ve got a lot of educational science toys, model rockets, LEGO sets, games, plastic models and drones,” Clawson said. “The specialty is the RC side of things including cars, trains and drones.”
One fan of HobbyTown is Ontario Mayor Randy Hutchinson, whose grandson is enamored with model trains.
“We appreciate you locating in Ontario and staying in Ontario,” Hutchinson said. “Plus you’ve added some entertainment value, we’ve been opening up more and more entertainment places in the county to come out of the cold and come in and enjoy.”
Jodie Perry, president of the Richland Area Chamber of Commerce, echoed Hutchinson’s appreciation of another entertainment venue for the community.
“It’s great to have some family-friendly things here where people don’t have to leave the community to do those things,” Perry said. “There is a lot of great things happening here, and we’re always happy to welcome another business.”
HobbyTown’s official ribbon cutting on Friday was marked with an inspirational prayer by Dave Vance of Crossroads Community Church.
“Thank you, God, for the dreams and passions they have to provide instruments of fun and excitement and opportunity and learning in this place,” Vance said. “We pray this would be a place of excitement and fun and hope in this community. As families come in and parents walk though, we pray You allow this to be a place of blessing.”
