`The first time I knew I was in love for sure was on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in a Florida beach town. There weren`t any movies I wanted to see and there was a wait at the bowling alley. The boy I was with turned to me and asked, `Wanna go to the mall?`
”. . . When this boy drove me to a large shopping center off a state highway, when he bought me a watery soda and bought a shirt that I`d picked out for him because it matched the green of his eyes, when he held my hand as we walked together under the metal arch of the tag detector at the record store, it was as romantic as a walk along the beach at sunset.”
That quote in Seventeen magazine from Ramona Lee, a reader, aptly describes the allure of large, indoor malls for today`s youth. Not just a spot to shop, the mall is an integral part of teen social life.
For teens, malls seem to have it all: stores galore, a wide variety of fast-food restaurants, a respite from the prying eyes of vigilant parents and a steady parade of members of the opposite sex.
For large numbers of youths, hanging out at the mall has become as accepted as cruising the local hamburger drive-in or stopping at the soda fountain would have been in years past. The only difference is that kids these days tend to be younger (first-time solo visits usually begin at age 11 or 12, those surveyed report), they often get a lift there from Mom, and their professed pastime is completely legitimate: ”I need to go shopping.”
The benefits to such ”mall crawling” or ”malling” should be obvious to any parent who is coping with a teen or preteen sporting a caked mass of moussed hair, strategic slits in the jeans and a relentless quest for Tiffany tapes. Other parents, however, have outlawed such diversions, citing fears concerning drug abuse, obscene language and physical violence, from fights to rapes.
As might be expected, teens see the malls as safe places and ideal gathering spots. Carrie Greiff, 12, of Aurora, said she has never seen ”kids acting wild.” Her two-hour stays at Fox Valley Mall generally are spent
”hanging out and shopping” with purchases primarily of clothes and accessories.
Meg Breiseth, 12, of West Chicago, said she began coming to Fox Valley two years ago. Now she said she comes every weekend for three or four hours to ”hang out and shop.”
Kathleen Signorelli, 11, of Aurora, said she only recently was allowed to come to the mall. The reason for the ban, she said, is that her father is a Cook County police officer and is a little ”overprotective.”
Managers at Fox Valley Mall in Aurora and Stratford Square in Bloomingdale refused to comment either on the practice of hanging out in general or to respond to specific parental fears, but a public relations spokesman for both shopping centers said malling is a national phenomenon.
Bob Park, vice president of JMB Properties Urban Co. Marketing Services of Oak Brook, which operates 17 malls including Fox Valley, Stratford Square and Oakbrook Center, compared today`s malls to the ice cream parlors of yesteryear, but he said today`s teen has more spendable income. The factor makes teens a very important market for retail merchants, Park said.
Jim Romano, operations manager of the Yorktown Shopping Center, an indoor mall in Lombard, said ”kids are a welcome sight” in part because ”they have money to spend and they`re looking for clothing that`s hot.”
Romano, who came to Yorktown 18 years ago as a security officer, said serious trouble there is rare. More likely to occur, he said, are adolescent pranks such as treading on furniture, throwing pennies off the second-floor balcony and splattering small plastic containers of ketchup onto the floor or pedestrians below. He remembers one incident when two teenage boys were apprehended after they uprooted an ornamental ficus tree, dropped it on the floor and ran.
Romano and local police officers said the major threat to security comes when teens band in large groups. ”When a group becomes strong,” Romano said, ”even the smallest member of the group will start yelling and do things he wouldn`t do by himself.”
Another factor that aggravates the situation is that some youths remain at the mall too long. Romano said it is fine for kids to get together for short periods, but he said there are some parents who will bring a child in the morning, leave him or her there all day and pick up the teen at closing.
”That`s too long,” he said. ”It (the mall) really is not for that.”
Teens sometimes are a nuisance to one another and to other shoppers, but it is the retail employees at the mall who not only reap the benefits but also bear much of the burden of teens en masse.
Garry Gall, manager of Rose Records at Yorktown, said the teens there
”are some of our best customers,” but another employee at Stratford Square said crowds of teens can be disturbing.
Maggie Borowick, manager of Lustig Jewelers in Stratford Square, said the ”loud and obnoxious” teens congregate in the eating area there, making it
”the last place I want to go when I get a break.”
More seriously, Borowick said she has begun to observe small but significant signs of gang activity. And although she gives mall security good marks for effort, she said they often are ”young guys” who are not highly paid and often are working at other part-time jobs on the side.
Although in groups the youths can be disruptive, Borowick said in her store they are treated with courtesy. ”We treat them all the same whether they have funky hair or dirty clothes,” she said. ”We`re really good with the kids. They`re our future.”
Diane Marcheschi, assistant manager of Musicland at Fox Valley, blames a lack of parental supervision and a lack of alternative teen centers or clubs for the ”mall rat” phenomenon.
She also credits the increasing numbers of two-income households with inflaming the problem: ”When both parents work, they want free time on the weekends, and that often means no children.” To pacify them, she said, they give the teens money and drop them off at the mall.
Shopping centers are also a haven for youths who have been suspended from school or are skipping classes, Marcheschi said. She mentioned a recent case in which three youths were shopping in the store during school hours. ”They told me they had been suspended,” she said, ”but what is their punishment?
They`re out shopping while friends are in school.”
Customers at Marcheschi`s record shop are treated with respect and consideration, she said, and few problems arise there because of the manager`s experience with teens and because employees are given special training to handle youths.
”If someone appears to be hanging around,” she said, ”we just pester them to death until they leave.”
If teen malling is a mixed bag for retailers, it also can leave parents in a dilemma. Many are caught between their teen`s desire to socialize and their fears that a minority of youths will present a bad example.
Kathy Walraven of St. Charles refuses to allow her 13-year-old son to engage in the pastime, and for him the St. Charles Mall is off limits. ”I`ve seen things going on inside and outside the mall that would blow your mind,” she said.
She described some of the trouble makers as ”displaced, dysfunctional kids” who sell drugs and shout obscenities regardless of passing shoppers.
”They don`t care who`s there, whether it`s man, woman or beast,” Walraven said.
She emphasized that while the majority of teens are ”good kids who go there because it is covered and because there are few activities in the area for teens . . . the minority have absolutely no respect for other people or their sense of values.”
Judy Richter of Geneva said she now lets her 15-year-old daughter Lisa go to the mall with friends but she said ”there is an element there at the St. Charles Mall which is not necessarily what you would wish your child be exposed to. But you can`t keep them on a leash, and besides, that element is at the high school anyway.”
Richter said Lisa`s trips are usually shopping excursions, but Lisa, a freshman at Geneva High School, said most people go to the mall to ”stand around and talk.”
