The Daily Mall Reader: Mall Rats
A daily dose of mall-related reading...
(Excerpt) CHICAGO — A growing number of shopping malls are turning away teenagers during evening hours unless they're accompanied by adults.Restrictions at some malls apply every night, others on Fridays and Saturdays. Hours and ages vary. The rules are meant to reduce fighting and ensure that adults and families don't avoid malls where rowdy teenagers take over stores, corridors and food courts.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., was the first U.S. mall to create an "escort policy" in 1996, says the International Council of Shopping Centers. The idea has caught on: 39 malls now have limits on teenagers. Fifteen implemented such policies in the past two years and dozens more are considering them.
Read the full article here.
Labels: Daily Mall Reader, teens
posted by Keith @ 4/04/2007
7 Comments:
Same old problem. Teens don't have anywhere to go, so they hang at the mall. Which actually used to be a part of US culture, celebrated in dozens of movies.
What surprises me is that US teens accept ever the increasing restrictions forced upon them. German teens would have picketed that bloody mall, if they had tried to institute that sort of policy.
Besides, children and teenagers have quite a lot of money due to pocket money, part time jobs, etc... It seems stupid driving potential customers away.
I agree with Cora and I was thinking the very same thing before I even read your response.
I think it is a bit assinine to have most of these retail stores wanting to sell to the younger, more profitable teen set by the clothes and styles being sold and then the malls want to turn around and try to restrict those same people who they are trying to cater to demographically from hanging out in the mall? Doesn't make sense to me.
I think if they want more families coming to the mall, it isn't the teens who fight that are putting them off, perhaps it is due to the lack of variety in the mall itself.
What surprises me is that US teens accept ever the increasing restrictions forced upon them. German teens would have picketed that bloody mall, if they had tried to institute that sort of policy.
Let's do it! (too bad I'm 29)
I think if they want more families coming to the mall, it isn't the teens who fight that are putting them off, perhaps it is due to the lack of variety in the mall itself.
Lord knows I hardly see any variety whatsoever when I go to a mall nowadays (and stores like Ambercrombe & Fitch don't even appeal to me at all).
That's a good reason why malls are dying in the first place, since most of them don't offer variety. Take Mall of America as an exception. It features an amusement park, underwater aquarium, a LEGO imagination place, movie theater, motion simulator and nearly every store you can think of and it still has an escort policy. I agree that some teens should be banned for their behavior, but most teens get bored during the weekends and have nowhere else to go if they live in an area that has nothing to do.
The Mall of America has an amusement park, aquarium and Legoland type thing, and yet they don't want any teens without parents?
Well then, maybe they should stop having things which appeal primarily to children and teenagers? At any rate, I can't imagine many senior citizens enjoying themselves at Legoland.
at the same time, I see the malls' point. teens have no place to hang out, but at the same time, at my local mall (Crossgates, Albany, NY) when I got out of a late movie and had to walk to the exit where I parked after the mall had closed, large groups of teens would be walking around the mall, just talking, flirting, goofing off, and selling drugs.
I've lived in two cities now with teen restrictions, and both (adult) shoppers and retailers were much happier after the rules were enforced. Even with a lot of pocket money, teens drove away more business for stores than anything.
Still seems a bit assinine to me to appeal primarily to the younger set without appealing to anyone else and then exclude those very same people they are appealing to. Maybe they deserve to die off with that crazy philosophy.
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