Mature Shoppers Only, Please

It seems that every few weeks I hear about another shopping mall somewhere in the country that is jumping on the newest response to teens; banning them. Well, to be fair, it’s not a total ban -- they can be there with their parents – but if you’re under 18, it’s no shoes, no shirt, no parent, no service.

This growing trend is intended to deal with “immature and disruptive” teens who are hanging out in the malls, but is this the most creative thing we can think of to deal with teens? More likely, it’s just the easiest thing we can think of, as anything else might require a little bit of effort.

It strikes me as strange, though, that malls would want to take the easy way out. I’ve seen estimates on the web that teen spending topped 190 billion dollars in 2006, and a lazy evening of television viewing confirms how many marketing dollars are targeting teens. It almost creates cognitive dissonance when you see young people with pockets full of money being encouraged to spend that money, but not being allowed to enter the mall.

Of course, the problem isn’t the teens with the bucks, it’s those dang “immature and disruptive” teens -- but I wonder exactly what percentage of teens fall into that category? Is it fair to exclude all teens because some teens misbehave? Let’s all give thanks that they don’t use that same reasoning in response to most adults concerns!

There’s another part of the debate that is often … well … not part of the debate. I’m talking about the fact that malls are often one of the very few places that teens have to gather and ‘hang’. As we exclude them from malls, are we talking about alternatives for them? It’s a rhetorical question, because of course we aren’t. Common sense might tell us that ‘solving’ problems in malls by excluding teens may simply push the ‘problems’ somewhere else, and perhaps even exasperate the ‘problems’. And what of the effect on older teens who may appear younger? Will a relaxing trip to the mall now involve a confrontation with security and the need to prove your age? No big deal, you say? It is for the teen already getting messages that they aren’t valued or wanted in our culture -- and this becomes just one more way for them to experience that message.

The most frustrating thing from my perspective is that there are other things we can do short of banning teens from the malls. Years ago I ran a street outreach program that developed a mall-based approach putting youth/adult teams in the malls during high traffic times to interact with teen customers. If security had a concern about a teen or group of teens, they could direct a trained outreach team to deal with the issue. We offered that program free of charge to area malls, and not one mall took us up on the offer. Their concern was that our program would attract more teens – a frightening thought to them. As a result, the program never operated.

I’m not saying that mall-based outreach programs are the solution to whatever problems may exist, but I do hold them up as an example of a creative solution that is at least worth a try before we simply close the doors to young people.