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NJ mall's solution to 'disruptive' teens: Make them get chaperones.
By
Verónica Del Valle
and
Louis C. Hochman
Published Apr 26, 2023
Modified May 10, 2023
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Aristide Economopoulos for Gothamist
By
Verónica Del Valle
and
Louis C. Hochman
Published Apr 26, 2023
Modified May 10, 2023
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New Jersey’s oldest mall is going to start turning away some of its younger shoppers — unless they’re accompanied by adults.
After 5 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays starting this weekend, any visitor to the 233-store Westfield Garden State Plaza in Paramus under the age of 17 must be accompanied by a parent or another adult over the age of 21. The mall says it may card adults, and those without ID might be asked to leave the property.
Any one adult can only be responsible for four minors, unless they’re under the age of 10. And the mall will have “waiting zones” where teens can be picked up if they’re still on the property after the curfew starts.
“Like many shopping centers across the country, we have experienced an increase in disruptive behavior that violates the center’s code of conduct by a small minority of younger visitors,” the mall’s management said in a statement sent to Gothamist.
Young mall-goers walk past a sign that explains Garden State Plaza's new parental guidance policy.
Aristide Economopoulos for Gothamist
Senior general manager Wesley Rebisz told NorthJersey.com the violations include "running through the property in large groups" and "fighting and putting it on TikTok."
Technically, the restriction only applies to common areas of the mall and its outside property — its AMC movie theater, department stores and restaurants set their own policies. But anyone leaving those facilities for a common area “will be checked to ensure that the Parental Guidance Policy is being followed,” the statement says.
Gabriel, 14, was shopping at the mall last Friday — on the last weekend when he’d be allowed there unsupervised after 5 p.m. He said he finds the new policy redundant, since there’s already an enforceable code of conduct.
“There’s mall security everywhere. Kids get banned from stores,” he said. “If it’s that bad, there must be an issue with the security as opposed to the children.”
Gabriel said he and his friends will be left without a consistent place to hang out. There’s a park just a few blocks away from Garden State Plaza where he said he’ll go when the weather permits.
Alexandra Lange, an architecture critic and author of “Meet Me by the Fountain: An Inside History of the Mall,” said teen-restrictive policies and curfews started to pop up in the 1980s and 1990s, during the explosive growth of malls.
One of the nation’s most famous shopping centers, the Mall of America in Minnesota, requires anyone younger than 16 to be accompanied by an adult after 3 p.m. any day of the week. When the Mall of America first instituted a curfew in the 1990s, it caught the ACLU’s attention, with a senior staff attorney telling The New York Times “it ought to be the parents, not the mall or the government'' who decide whether kids can go to the mall.
Garden State Plaza is one of New Jersey's largest malls, second only to the American Dream Mall in East Rutherford, about 15 minutes away. American Dream already requires adult supervision for anyone under 16 after 4 p.m.
Lange said curfew policies resurface from time to time because teenagers … keep acting like teenagers.
“There's very little in institutional memory," she said. "‘We tried to institute this policy before, and there was a backlash.’ But now all of those people are gone from the mall or all of those people don't care anymore because their kids are grown up."
Krystal Kwasco, 17, from Passaic City, was at the mall on Friday with her 8-year-old sister. She said she sees teenagers laughing and dancing as signs of life.
“It doesn't bother me. It looks kind of nice — even if it is a mall and even if there are people around,” she said.
Allos’ school is within walking distance of the mall. He said he’ll miss it as a hangout spot. There isn’t much to do in his town, he said, so sometimes people hang out in the local laundromat during the summer to get a respite from the heat.
"There’s always things to do in the mall,” he said.
Tagged
economy
new jersey
Verónica Del Valle
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Louis C. Hochman
After about two decades in (mostly) New Jersey-focused commercial print, digital and digital-but-radio-adjacent news, Lou stumbled into member-supported news in early 2021, as the editor and CEO of Montclair Local. There, he (hopes he) expanded enterprise, brought more sophistication to digital storytelling and moved the nonprofit newsroom closer to long-term financial sustainability. He helped lead the Local to its fourth consecutive General Excellence award from the New Jersey Press Association — the NJPA's highest honor with judges noting the paper's work to strip away layers of government opacity, to hold power to account, to make news accessible for more members of the community, to share the stories and concerns of more facets of the community and to tell compelling stories across multiple media. He's excited to continue the same ethic — news as a public service — at NYPR as the New Jersey and suburbs editor, drawing on the extraordinary talents of reporters including Karen Yi and Nancy Solomon. Lou lives in Philly (that commute!) with his partner and their two cats, about whom and about which he speaks incessantly.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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