A Cleveland mall is enacting a tough teen curfew: no teens without adult accompaniment after 2:30 pm, 7 days a week. While anti-teen curfews are nothing new, the mall’s is the only one to be in effect every single day. According to the mall, packs of unruly teenagers spending little money are driving away legitimate paying shoppers. Apparently this is part of a national trend to keep teens out of malls. Basically, we don’t want teens congregating anywhere in public. It’s best they stick to the rickety barn, the derelict mine shaft, and the defunct mill.
Shopping centers showing mallrats the door [MSNBC] (Thanks To Doug!)
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Where I grew up, the malls were teen-free because someone had the foresight to open a giant arcade with a crummy theater attached to it. That place was PACKED with kids from age 10 to 19 just about every night. No adult was ever there, because who but a teenager would want to (as I did) play Galaga and Centipede from 8 pm to midnight and then go see The Texas Chainshow Massacre? It was great. I would have hated to work security in that place, but it was great.
People get shot in malls, and usually by some teenager who is part of a gang. Reality sucks. We’re not allowed to enforce laws anymore (without nonsensical cries of racism) so now the malls will have to move potential offenders out before anything happens. Malls that have taken no action are now closed. Such is life in the lawless USA.
@SexCpotatoes: “These kids are your future caretakers.”
That’s the scariest thought I’ve read in a long time. I’ll work very hard to see to it that I am NEVER taken care of by most of the little sociopaths I see running around my local mall!
@floydianslip6: So I should just be able to come into your house, go through your stuff, because of the Constitution? Malls are private property. While I agree that we need to have activities and places for teens, malls are not obliged to provide them for free at the cost of legitimate business.
@fluiddruid: I completely agree with you. However, how is a solution of treating every teen in a mall as a loiterer or “gang member” a good one?
Aside from that, the whole situation reeks of where our society is going from a parental standpoint.
I suppose my larger concern is that by setting the standard for behavior so low, it’s inviting problems. Catering to least common denominator produces more and more of the same.
As for your home invasion argument, private sector homes and stores are not private property in the same vein. You know this.
Wow, thanks everybody. Speaking from the 18-25 population, I do appreciate being spoken about as if I am ready to kill any old lady that interrupts my walk in the mall as I attempt to score more drugs. Now, mind you, I still get 10 credit card offers a week and I am not even out of college, but please, kick me out of the mall. I guess your generation only wants my money when it doesn’t have to talk to me.
However, don’t worry about my generation. We will be too busy paying back the immense amount of debt you threw on us and working our asses off as you all attempt to cash in on the medical systems you refused to fix to be doing anything crazy. Thanks for not approving child health care, getting us into Iraq and not attempting to really stop it, all of it. Oh, and thanks for making my currency so worthless that other countries mock it. Way to build on your parents success right?
Your children thank you for everything. Keep your fucking malls. We’ll just get our music and movies from the internet.
Being a Cleveland resident, this is a pretty hot topic here.
One thing the decision makers forgot all about which is pretty important and doesn’t even get mentioned ANYWHERE….
Cleveland City Schools make use of the regions public transit system, RTA, to bus kids around to/from schools
Why the hell would they do that? Well, because the schools can’t manage money worth a damn so traditional buses are
nill. Anyone who lives here knows that the Cleveland Public Schools are in terrible shape; fiscally or otherwise.
Back in the day, this location, Tower City (Terminal Tower) was Cleveland’s “Grand Central Station” for the trains
Tower City (where the mall is also located) is a large bus stop for these kids FORCED to ride the RTA.
Tower City was chosen as a stop for these kids because of it’s location and it’s public access and it also gave kids
a safe place to wait for a connecting bus.
So, while waiting for these buses, the kids would go in the mall to kill time and .. well be kids…
Now, this is no longer allowed and the kids have to stand out in the cold.
Cleveland’s winters can be quite harsh.
While the few may have ruined it for majority of kids, this is was a terrible decision on the part of Tower City Management.
The fact it’s being supported so much is quite saddening.
I’ve heard a few folks refer to it as ‘selective racisim” because a large majority of the kids affected by this ‘new rule’ are of color.
IMHO, it’s just another thing for Cleveland to be laughed at about by the rest of the nation.
@Snakeophelia: They have a complex like that in New Rochelle. Results have been less than stellar…the place is as much a magnet for idiots as it is a pacifier.
Thank goodness I can still go to the mall because I am not afraid of teenagers. Don’t today’s teens know that you are supposed to find out which of your friends’ parents is the most lackadaisical(sp?) about teenage drinking, pot smoking, etc., and then you just spend all your time over there? That or find the friend whose parents are never home. Between the friend whose mom worked nights at Walmart and the friend whose mom was out of town every weekend for antique shows, the mall was the last place you would find me as a teenager. We tried the abondoned quarry, railroad trestle, old mill method, but that led to getting busted by the cops and we lost a few good bongs that way. Now as an adult I am happy to be able to break the law in the privacy of my own home!
@matdevdug: Oh, hey – at least you’ll miss social security and all that by a lot. For me it looks like the spigot’s gonna go off about 5-7 years before I’m chugging Metamucil. Talk about a burn…
Just love how the commenters say that when they were kids they hung out like these kids do, but now “things are different” and want to shunt kids off to work camps or whatever. Geez, I wonder where kids learn the meaning of “hypocracy” from?
Profiling rules, kids. How about the malls deal with the PROBLEM teens, not the majority who go to shop, have a meal or snack, see a movie?
This isn’t rocket science. More mature security personnel who are highly visible and take the initiative to nip problems in the bud. Maybe a mall “street team” of teen-friendly ambassadors who interact and hand out coupons for discounts or deals, and help to keep groups moving along… and win/win for shoppers and stores.
To those of you mentioning that the mall is “Private Property”, you are technically incorrect. A mall is considered a place of “Public Accommodation”. Therefore private property rules do not apply.
@ElizabethD: Mature (ho, ho), initiative-taking (hee, hee, hee), friendly (bwahahaha) security personnel? (WAHAHAHAHAHA…)
@chouchou: I don’t let 19 year olds into my house. You gonna sue me?
Go back to law school.
I have to say this: FASCISTS. Now that I got the hyperbole out of my system.
What’s wrong with kids being at malls? I’m sure they buy things every once in a while, and if they break the law then you bust them for it like everyone else…I don’t see the reason for this at all.
There’s just very little trouble you can get into in the mall, so let them hang out.
@floydianslip6: Whether something is a good idea or unconstitutional are totally different questions. Regardless, the property owners of the mall and the store owners who pay their rent are not free babysitters. Whether it’s a private home or a store, they have the right to determine who is there. You can say it’s unfair or bad business, and it may well be, but your right is then not to support those stores with your business.
Heh, I soooo didn’t have this problem growing up (the nearest mall was 50 miles away).
In the 90′s , a lot of kids stay in school in China till past their school hours. Sometimes even at 9pm. Nothing to do at home and not willing to spend money in the malls…
I have to say I purposely avoid places that have packs of bored teenagers hanging out at them. I’m not “threatened” but more often than not they are obnoxious and disruptive. If there is another choice, I’ll avoid them. Malls want people who actually have money to spend like me, so chasing teens away is really in their best interest.
Amazing. I was a teenager myself until April of this year. I didn’t particularly enjoy skateboarding but I did fancy BMX and mall cruising. In my area there was very little to do, if you didn’t have money, until about two years ago when they finally got wise that a public skatepark would save on the amount of damage by skaters, bladers and bmxers, go figure, to public buildings.
Unless there is underlying gang issues in the area that aren’t being reported, there needs to be alternatives. To come back to my original comparison about the skatepark. We had begged the city for years to build one. They continued to say that it would be too expensive, no-one would support it, etc. The problem was that everywhere we rode at the time was starting to put up signs and cops started to hastle us. Finally we got parents involved and life started to look up.
If the teens are being violent enough to justify banning them all from the mall then that city has a problem too big for a curfew to fix.
@fluiddruid: That’s true, but just because your on private property doesn’t necessarily toss away all your constitutional rights either.
There has to be some middle ground between enforcing a blanket regulation on innocent teens, and dealing with disruption.
When I was a teenager I was a lot better-behaved than a lot of “adults” were at the time. I would have made a public point of never spending a dime at a place that decided to arbitrarily judge me about something they were obviously clueless about.
Let these jerks lose their shirts from some of their best customers because they can’t stop being judgmental long enough to get their heads out of their asses.
Sure, throw out people who are misbehaving. But only those who do. Leave those who are polite and make no trouble ALONE.
I am very surprised about peoples reactions here. Especially the ones that are on the “its private property they can decide who they want to have” side of the argument. I just cant understand why people would want to spent their time in such a restrictive environment. But maybe its because I’m European and we don’t have any heavily enforced mall laws here.
Personally I would definitely avoid a mall where my teenage child is not allowed to go by himself.
I have to say that I’m all for strict curfews on teenagers milling through the mall aimlessly. I understand that there are fewer places for teenagers to congregate in public, but why do they have to congregate in public?
When I was a teen, we would always go and hang out at one another’s homes. I personally think that would be a better environment for them to congregate. Moreover, I personally think its better that they stay at home and save money rather than be tempted to waste their own or their parents’ money on overpriced mall food or arcades.
@Jeff from LA: Because, you idiot, when people congregate, that is the definition of “public.”
@Jeff from LA: I don’t think anyone is for people aimlessly loitering. The problem is we’re deferring PARENTING responsibilities to a mall.
If you don’t want your kids hanging at a mall, tell them to come home, don’t pass some kind of “mall law” or ordinance.
I think the same goes for town curfews, it’s increasingly becoming the TVs, the music industries, and the law makers jobs to parent our children. What gives? I didn’t need the mall or my town to impose a curfew on me, my PARENTS did that.
Perhaps it’s not clear from all these posting I’m a libertarian?
The problem isn’t with the kids, it’s with the parents.
I think this ordinance is insane, and no I am not a teenager, and haven’t been one for years. Teens have no bills and unlimited funds practically from parents. They are banning a large portion of their customers. The stores inside the mall can’t be happy with this.
@floydianslip6:
Uh, actually, it does. Go back to law school.
As a Clevelander who, at one time, liked going to said mall, I can say this is actually a good thing. All that crap about teen rights, blah blah blah. Don’t waste your breath.
When I took my wife there to go Christmas shopping last year and two teen guys near us were settling their differences in a polite and civilized manner. NOPE. They were duking it out and almost knocked my wife down. This wasn’t in an obscure corner of the building either.
If a nice place is run into the ground by a bunch of kids who don’t know better then someone else will have to make decisions for them, such as leaving in the afternoon.
No, I’m not an old guy; I’m in my twenties. And no, I’m not a pansy; I actually get too violent too quickly most times. But, dammit, learn how to act, fools!
@humphrmi: Well, no, you do not give up all your constitutional rights when you go on private property. If you did, then it would be perfectly acceptable to sell unaccompanied teens into slavery.
A few years ago, I was visiting someone and we went to the mall to do some shopping. He pointed out the spot in the food court where someone had been shot and thrown off the balcony of the second floor. I was absolutely horrified, not only that something like that happened, but also because people were milling about as if it wasn’t even a big deal that someone had been SHOT a week earlier. Bottom line, when it comes to trouble, it will go where the troublemakers go. If the troublemakers go to the mall, their problems follow. Is it okay? Not at all. Is imposing a curfew the answer? No, because blanket statements about teenage behavior is wrong.
If I was a teen who didn’t cause problems for anyone, and was either a legitimate shopper or was just with one friend, I would be peeved too. Why should I suffer for the behavior of annoying people?
As an adult, I never notice the nice, respectable kids at the mall. I do, however, always notice the annoying ones who are not looking where they are going, and who are talking loudly and are hogging the entire mall space. I also notice the ones who aren’t there for a specific need, they are just there to loiter and “hang out.” In a lot of areas, this means gang activity. In my mall, it meant you were just obnoxious.
@humphrmi:
Try again, it’s a complicated issue.
Robins v. Pruneyard Shopping Center
and likewise
Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins
Both the mall and the people in it have rights, the question is which carries more weight in a given situation. Largely it falls in the states lap.
In general you’re right, but in the case of a mall or shopping plaza where it’s OPEN TO THE PUBLIC the line becomes blurred.
So maybe next time, you could contribute to the conversation like an adult?
@mattindustries: thats what I was thinking. When I was a teen (only a few years ago) I had a full time job an no bills. I had well over a thousand dollars a month of disposable income, and as a stupid kid as i was I didn’t save a dime. I had a lot of friends in the same boat and it wasnt rare that we would get bored, hit the mall and buy whatever would entertain us that afternoon (bought a xbox with 4 controllers and some games because it was raining out and we were bored, bought an electric guitar one after noon because I thought it would be fun to learn, bought a 500 dollar watch because I got sick of not knowing what time it was, etc) and that was in the span of like 3 months. Kids are stupid with money, give them a place to spend it.
I bet they change this rule within a few months. And how will this affect their cheap mall labor?
@matdevdug:
Hey, you should be thanking the malls that prevent you from going there with your 10 credit card offers a week. Let’s see, you get 10 CC offers a week, and you’re in college. Let’s face it, what teenager can resist “free” money. CC companies know that you will bury yourself in debt before you even have a real job to pay them off, so you basically become enslaved to them for the rest of your life. Now the malls prevent you from going there without guidance, so you can’t spend this borrowed money, thereby preventing a life of indentured servitude to the powers that be, working every waking hour to pay off the high interest debt you’ve accrued as a teenager.
Think of it as a public service.
^ hehehe
@cuiusquemodi: That topic is covered by state and federal laws on private property, not the constitution. The constitution only applies to the relationship between you and the government, not private parties.
Again, go back to law school.
This okay only to a certain extent. This should apply to teens that are too young to drive that parents just drop them off. If they have legitimate business at the mall, the parent should accompany them. No parent is THAT busy. As for the teens that have a drivers license, they should be able to do as they please. Usually, if a teen is old enough to drive, they aren’t going to be at some freek’in mall.
@xtc46: I’m guessing that unless you had a job at the mall, you weren’t allowed to be in it…now, this actually works in the mall’s favor, as if the only way to be in the mall after the curfew was to get a job, heck, get a job at the mall at your favorite store, get a discount AND money to spend on stuff, and when you have breaks or when you get off, go buy what you want.
No parent is THAT busy.
@dirk1965: You’re kidding, right?
After a someone was murdered in the mall in my hometown, it became was teenager-free on the weekends after 6pm. Many people were afraid to go to the mall due to throngs of teenagers hanging out around the escalators and stairs. There was relatively little outcry from the community.
@morganlh85: Seriously. I had more money to spend on crap when I was sixteen than I do now, ten years later. I was also in a suburb with nothing to do on sat nights except the movies and the mall, and we bought overpriced tshirts and Auntie Anne’s pretzels.
So we have the merchants screaming Do Something at the mall management, the teens screaming It’s Too Much at the mall management. I wonder what the police are screaming at the mall management? From the article:
And that’s just one incident. Police are a little cranky when it comes to repeat calls for big disturbances, and there comes a time when they finally say “enough is enough” and push for businesses to be labeled as public nuisances and be closed down.
Closing down a mall would probably be impractical. But I bet someone in mall management got a call or two from the city “suggesting” certain changes in the mall’s admittance policy before new construction permits or vital roadwork around the mall’s perimiter was allowed to happen.
On the legal end? I’ll reserve judgment until a lawsuit actually happens. Not seeing the free speech or assembly angles here. I’m guessing the ACLU doesn’t, either as something like this would be high-profile enough for them to start blasting press releases at media outlets. Maybe all those teens with their awesome spending power can pool their resources and pay the retainer?
Oh yeah, and the article has the last word on all that unlimited disposable income from the kids:
Rectilinear… Yes, I am serious. If a parent can’t spent a lousy hour with their kid to go into a mall to shop for whatever they need… they shouldn’t be parents. I take it that you THINK you are too busy to take time out for your own kid???
@Pylon83:
They don’t need anywhere else to go. When I was a kid I didn’t hang out at the mall. I hung out with my friends outside. We played soccer, or baseball, or even football in the street or in someones backyard. Or sometimes we just hung out talking about stuff. We never went to the mall…
Ya know, having gone to Tower City when it first opened as “The Avenue at Tower City Center”, and having it go to the wayside ever since, I can say that it isn’t the teens that are killing the downtown mall, but rather the poor choices that have been plaguing it. Whoever thought that you’d put upteen number of airbrush on t-shirt shops, dollar stores and fake hair extention shops in a place that houses a fine eateries like Morton’s and Hyde Park, as well as two exceptional hotels, such as Ritz-Carlton and Renaissance?
At the mall in question, the only real revenue that would/could be generated are by the teens, seeing as a majority of the shops are catered for them (Sports shops and LVL X, and Charlotte Russe, anyone?) Add that the Cleveland Cinemas are a pigsty that only rowdy kids would go to watch a movie, and we have another Randall Park Mall disaster waiting to happen.
They did, afterall, kill their mall with a similar method a decade or so back…
Way to kill Cleveland that much more… (At least our teams are finally becoming more decent – *KNOCK ON WOOD*)
When I was that age, there were things for me to do, so I did not have to hang out at the mall. There were real afterschool activities (not just clubs), like dances, haunted houses, and socials. There were also youth centers, businesses, and other social programs designed to help young teens to expend their natural “energy” in creative or non-destructive ways.
But politicians have deemed such programs as “pork,” and businesses are far less community-minded as they were in the past. Our national policy is one of finger pointing rather than problem solving. Rather than address the problems plaguing our children, we have chose to demonize them. Our actions have taken the normal flames of teen angst and turned them into an inferno.
Thus we have reaped what we have sown. We have a crop of young people who do not respect property, not to mention themselves.
Expect to see further problems crop up in this community real soon in the news….
This rule is stupid.
If you live anywhere like mine, you’ll see that the only place that can be hung out in is the mall.
Despite what you think, teens do spend alot of money in malls. If not on merchandise, it’s on food and drinks. Without teens, some key stores may go bankrupt. The movie theature in the mall next to our school mostly gets profits from teens rather from adults.
Grow up people. Teens may loiter, but they’re not being that disruptive. If you want them to leave, build an arcade or a skatepark beside the mall or something. Root out the really rowdy ones and ban them. Not all teens act like that.
Okay, 2:30? Do you want teens to not shop at the mall at all? Most teens aren’t even out of school by then.
Completely unreasonable.
This is stupid. sometimes the malls are the only places to hang out that is not at home. I mean what teenager wants to hang out at home all the time with their parents breething down their neck? also if it is too cold for an ouside activity the mall is the only place left.
people just don’t think about what there is for teens to do. Most places are either for people 18 years of age and older, or for 10 year olds and younger. the people inbetween just get left behind. None of these problems would happen if there was a lot of places for teens to go too.
But untill then… stop treating them like pests and maybe things will change.