SPOKANE VALLEY -- Spokane Valley seniors are in the midst of a power play over a ping pong table at Spokane Valley Senior Center that was taken away and moved to another location where they have to pay to play.

The seniors at the center are irate, saying they want their ping pong table back but center’s board of directors there’s no chance that ping pong table is coming back and that has the seniors steamed.

“We're here because they’ve taken our ping pong tables,” Verne Hutchinson said.

“They marched in here in no uncertain terms and told us we can’t even talk about it,” Ernest Buckler said.

Spokane Valley Senior Center houses pool tables, bingo, crafts and until last Friday it housed a ping pong table as well. President of the senior center board of directors Mary Alice Nelson says they were happy to provide one ping pong table but the men kept asking for another one.

“We do not have the facility for it,” Nelson said.

Sick of the arguing about a second ping pong table the board of directors instead pulled the existing ping pong table out and moved it to a community center where it costs a buck a game to play.

And as Ernest Buckler puts it, “That’s when the fit hit the shan.”

“Because of safety issues and we found them a place to play,” Nelson said. “I don’t think they have anything to complain about.”

The men say they feel as if they're elementary boys who have been grounded.

“They tend to treat us like children like we're just going to roll over and say, eh, whatever,” Buckler said.

To which Nelson retorted, “When you act like children you get treated like children.”

So now the men are zipping up their paddle bags for today but they say they won't let up.

“There are members here that fought in World War II and they fought to save democracy, this is a small deal, its ping pong in a small town but its still democracy and this is how we keep it going,” Buckler said.

The senior center’s board of directors says there are rules and regulations about how much room each ping pong table needs and there isn’t enough space there for the table. They also say their safety concerns are real, claiming that a man broke his arm while playing ping pong a while back.