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player ready...When the largest mall in the U.S. decides it is time to close the doors on some of its most faithful customers–the kids–shopping centers across the country are bound to take notice.
The Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., announced this week it will ban teenagers younger than 16 and unaccompanied by an adult from entering the mall on Friday and Saturday nights.
Any underage kid in the mall after 6 p.m. who is not with a chaperone 21 years of age or older–even someone just coming out of a movie or finishing dinner in the food court–will be escorted off the premises.
“We don’t want to see anyone get hurt,” Mall of America spokeswoman Teresa McFarland said in defending the mall’s new curfew.
No single incident prompted the policy, which begins Sept. 20, McFarland said. But there have been a number of minor incidents, ranging from running inside the mall to fights breaking out.
“Our security officers have become experts at putting out these little brush fires,” she said, “but we’re afraid for an innocent bystander. . . .”
The action is the most extreme of a number of measures mall officials have adopted in the last year to cope with thousands of teenagers who have taken to congregating–and in some cases, misbehaving–in the 4.2-million-square-foot shopping center.
And it is not the only mall to deal so dramatically with the loitering-teen problem. Malls across the country have been re-examining their security in an attempt to strike a balance between making centers accessible to everyone and maintaining a pleasant shopping atmosphere.
Although officials of retail centers in the Chicago area have not resorted to such measures and say they do not plan to, they and law enforcement officers acknowledge that idle teens do make some shoppers nervous, at the very least, and that groups of young people hanging around malls can spell trouble.
Last spring, six youths, whom police identified as gang members, were arrested at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee after a fight in which a display window was shattered and the nerves of shoppers and workers were jangled. Mall officials said the fight was an isolated incident.
They and West Dundee police say they are confident security measures already in place are enough to handle any problems.
Spring Hill posts a code of conduct at all entrances that spells out how people of all ages should behave. And, like many other malls in the Chicago area, Spring Hill closes at 6 p.m. Saturdays.
Mall of America, by comparison, is open until 9:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The suburban Minneapolis mall not only boasts of stores, restaurants and movie theaters but offers an indoor amusement park with roller coasters and other rides, making it even more of a magnet to young people.
“Crowds of kids hanging out is a prevailing problem that can exist in just about any mall anywhere,” said West Dundee Police Chief Allan DeMien. “We have occasional problems, and we’ll get gang calls once in a while, but (Spring Hill) handles it very well.”
Chicago-area shopping center and law enforcement officials say a curfew on young people is unnecessary here, given security measures already in place.
At Gurnee Mills, for example, a security force of 40 to 55 officers is augmented by a Gurnee Police Department substation inside the mall that is staffed with two full-time officers, said mall general manager Joseph Szymaszek.
Randhurst Mall in Mt. Prospect has 24-hour security patrols in the parking lot, bicycle patrols and an office in the mall for village police. Those measures are a “visual deterrent” to would-be troublemakers, said Officer Bill Roscop.
Schaumburg Police Officer Joe Sortino said Woodfield Mall has asked Schaumburg police for assistance with crimes ranging from shoplifting to reckless driving.
Problems with youths do not happen very often, Sortino said, and usually amount to officers asking groups of loitering, sometimes unruly, teenagers to move along.
As for the Minnesota mall’s new policy, Sortino said, “I don’t see it being necessary at Woodfield. Woodfield has an excellent security department that’s as proactive as possible.”
Officials at the Mall of America, explaining their “Parental Escort Policy,” say nothing they have tried has tamed the intimidating spectacle of up to 3,000 unsupervised youths hanging out at the east end of the shopping center on Friday and Saturday nights.
The mall tried hiring more police officers. It started a Youth Liaison program, in which a plainclothes security officer went to schools and explain proper mall behavior.
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Most recently, the mall implemented a Mighty Moms program, in which 20 mothers from across the Twin Cities area walk the mall with security officers and talk to teenagers.
Many Chicago-area teenagers, as well as parents, criticized Mall of America’s new policy as not only an invasion of teens’ rights but a sure way to drive down business and deprive youths of a safe, fun social spot.
“No kid wants to go to the mall with their mother,” said 14-year-old Denise Gay of Aurora, who was shopping at Aurora’s Fox Valley Mall.
“We’re not troublemakers. We didn’t do anything wrong, so if we went up (to Mall of America), we’d be punished for doing nothing,” said Cindy Standefer, 13, of Arlington Heights, who was going to a movie Wednesday at Town & Country Mall in Arlington Heights.
“No shoes, no shirts, no parents, no service–that doesn’t make any sense.”