The menace of loitering senior citizens in the New York City metropolitan area continues. First, a McDonald’s in Queens kicked out a group of neighborhood seniors who used the restaurant as an all-day coffee house, and politicians brokered a peace. This time, a 73-year-old man who walked laps around a Long Island mall has been banned from the property for trespassing.

Let’s back up a minute. Just being inside the mall before the stores open isn’t trespassing. Mall walkers exist all over the country: they’re mainly senior citizens who walk the climate-controlled, ice-free corridors of their local shopping center for exercise before it opens. This man says that he once had permission from the management to use the restroom before the mall officially opened, but they stopped allowing him to do so.

“This [security guard], I guess he has it in for me for some reason, but he escorted me to the security office and asked me for my license, took my picture and escorted me out,” he explained to News 12. He received a six-month ban from the premises: if he’s seen anywhere on the property, from the Sears to the parking lot to the IHOP, he’s not allowed on the porperty.

It’s not like American suburbia has any shortage of malls, though. The banned walker told Newsday that he simply moved to a shopping center in the town of Massapequa. That mall happens to be owned by the same company, Westfield. Maybe they have a more liberal bathroom policy.

Mall-walker banned from Westfield South Shore Mall in Bay Shore [News 12]
Banned from one mall, West Islip man walks at another [Newsday]

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