Punk ass kids always acting the fool at the mall.

The situation is quite similar at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN. They have an under-16 rule. I was actually carded by a security guard right after my 16th birthday. It's silly.

The mall is a business; it exists to allow people to come, shop, buy things and thus turn a profit for its shareholders. Thus, when kids show up and interfere with that mission by being obnoxious towards the other customers, the corporate rules governing the mall's (private) property were changed to prevent them from doing so.

They've decided that they only want kids to come in with grownups at certain times of the week. How is this a story? If it were more akin to that case a couple years ago when a mall in Upstate New York had a guy arrested for wearing a shirt that said something akin to "Peace!" I might be worked up, but there are lots of places where no kids are allowed. So what?

It's the idea that it's a mall. Malls are where teenagers and kids go to "hang out" and for there to be restrictions against that is strange.

Think about it this way though.

Those young teens go and hang out at the mall but do they actually spend money? I bet very few of them do and if they do it's food in the food court. I bet when a young teen spends money at a store in the mall 9 times out of 10 it's when they are with a parent and that parent is buying them something.

I bet what little money they spend while hanging out with friends is offset by shoplifting and the additional manpower/security that has to be hired to handle their shenanigans.

Damn I sound like an old bastard.

I guess I hadn't really thought of malls as sancroset. I suppose that they could be considered Temples of Capitalism, attended by the high priests of greed and their numerous flocks, but I hadn't imagined that the children being denied access to that would bug a good socialist. ;)

Joe Cocomo

Actually, most of the younger teenagers I know spend wads of money. Their parents give them rolls of 20s and send them to the mall where they buy clothes from Hot Topic and 90 dollar watches and video games.

I'm not a big word on huge malls but the local malls here have enough security to take down a fleet of Elephants but I can see your point.

I think a better reason to kick them out of the mall at a certain time is for their safety, big malls like that probably have tons of creeps.

Well they are. I might not enjoy the state of the economy but at least I know what's good for it. Keeping sometimes paying costumers away seems to be well... Dumb.

"but the local malls here have enough security to take down a fleet of Elephants"

wow. tallahassee mall's security consists of a short set guy, a cross-eyed guy, an old black man, and a wide hipped old woman.

I don't know what kind of mall Pheasant Lane is, but different malls do have different atmospheres, some ritzier than others, and maybe it makes sense for the demographic they cater to, to tone down the teen presence. If there's other malls nearby that cater more to teen needs, then so much the better if the kids go to those malls and pheasant lane can lose their business. Its not fascist or anti-capitalist to set these kinds of rules, because its private property and because there's multiple malls competing with each other for all the shoppers. Malls with that kind of snobby attitude piss me off anyway and they drive me away even though i'm not a teen. Its the american way to stop shopping there and choose a different mall instead.

The irony in this is that I turned 16 three weeks ago.

So it doesn't bug me one bit...heh

That's kind of like that song that was on the radio a few years ago, where the woman sings about how ironic things are, then she gives a bunch things that are supposed to be ironic, but. . . aren't. . .

If you live in a neighborhood where "parents give (their pre-pubescent brats) rolls of 20s and send them to the mall where they buy clothes from Hot Topic and 90 dollar watches and video games," it's time for you to go over to the dark side and start voting Republican or something, just based on your strictly Marxist class interests. :)
(Unless you just work for such people. If I did, I'd probably want the revolution to hurry up and get here, too. . .)

lol I do work for those types of people, corporate America and all that jazz.

We have like 6 Barney Fife look-a-likes and a few ladies. They constantly patrol the mall on the look out for Elephants.

wait a sec.... The guy that gave me a cavity search in the mall bathroom wasn't a short set guy, a cross-eyed guy, an old black man, or a wide hipped old woman.

Did I get taken advantage of?

As a former manager of several mall stores, I have to give my opinion. I think that too many parents go dump their kids off at the mall to get rid of them for a few hours. They have no supervision, they leave the mall whenever they feel like it, they shoplift, start fights, and they antagonize other patrons of the mall.

Now I am not saying that every kid does this, but in my experience every little idiot I caught shoplifting was always an unsupervised kid under 15. Let's think about this....

Would you go drop off your 13 year old daughter at a someone's house with a bunch of people there that you don't know, where no one is paying any attention to where she goes, who she leaves with, what she is doing? NO! Then why the fuck would you drop them off at the mall with hundreds of people? Lazy parents make me sick.

Don't say a word or I'll cut you.

That's what I was thinking. Most young kids aren't spending (much) money but they probably are causing trouble.

Wow. This just doesn't make sense for a couple reasons.

Firstly, they are losing money by inhibiting those kids that do have a legitimate reason to be there, wether it's just for the food courts or not.

Second, the trouble-makers aren't going to be kept out. They'll just bring their older "banger" friends along. I mean really, it's easier for security to get rid of a few trouble-making teens vs. a few trouble-making adults and the teens.

What they need to do is take care of business in a better manner. For instance helping to enforce truancy throughout the week by alerting the authorities. On weekends, actually have the security guards doing something to stop the behavior they (the mall owners) are trying to curb. The issue is less of a need to limit the numbers of kids, but rather limiting the number of trouble makers while keeping business up. Simply put, start 86ing the little tards that can't take a hint and then start having them arrested for tresspassing if they return.

Of course, this actually applies to all the troublesome idiots in the herd.

They could also get rid of the undesirables by making the atmosphere less "cool" to hang out in. If they don't have a reason to want to go there, they won't. Our local mall finally got rid of the arcade TILT once the new owners bought it, and quite a bit of the teens needing attitude adjustments left on their own.