Aurora – Aurora Mall will begin enforcing a policy next month that bans teens 16 or younger from the shopping center on Friday and Saturday nights if they aren’t accompanied by a parent or guardian.
Mall officials say the move – believed to be the first such curfew in the metro area – is to encourage more families and to discourage the 400 to 500 teenagers who make the mall their primary weekend hangout.
“I have a teen issue at the mall,” said John Rulli, an executive with Simon Property Group, the Indianapolis company that owns Aurora Mall. “They are our best customers. We embrace them, but we do need to control their behavior in the mall. They tend to get out of hand.”
He added that 60 percent of stores gear their sales to teens.
Teenagers at the mall Thursday didn’t support the policy, which takes effect Sept. 9. The restriction goes into effect from 5:00 p.m. until closing.
“I really think it’s rather dumb,” said Ashlie Spencer, 16, who says she spends about $400 a month at the mall. “If you’re … not going around all ghetto, you should be allowed to be in here. This is really directed toward us,” said the African-American senior at Gateway High School. “I think this is racist.”
Rulli said the policy won’t target any group. He said the race issue came up at another of the company’s malls, and the company has worked with legal experts to make sure its policies are race neutral.
Theresa Stroud-McKaskill, an African-American parent of a 17-year-old boy, thinks the weekend curfew is a great way to get families back to the mall.
“I know there are going to be some people who won’t like it,” she said. “Of course, people will say that (it’s racist). They will holler that about anything. … It’s not about that at all.”
The Rev. Larry Brown, pastor of Lowry Community Christian Church, who has been working with the city of Aurora to ease racial tensions, worries about the implementation of the policy.
“Who are you going to use to police it?” he asked. “That’s where the verdict is still out.”
The curfew comes a year after a mall leasing agent was secretly recorded saying black youths weren’t wanted in the mall.
The statement touched off a firestorm of controversy, resulting in promises to change.
Rulli met with members of the black community Thursday, saying the company has hired an African-American assistant manager and hired more African-American security guards. It also set up a Moms and Dads program, in which community members monitor youths in the mall on weekends – and will be primary enforcers of the curfew.
Now, he said, the key to the mall’s success is to promote a family atmosphere. The Family First program on weekends will offer discounts, music and educational activities.
About 30 shopping centers around the country have enacted curfews, said Alisa Sill, director of mall marketing for Simon, who added that this was the first for metro Denver. Simon’s Mall of America near Minneapolis began a policy in 1996 identical to the Aurora Mall plan.
A brief survey of some other Denver-area shopping centers failed to turn up others looking at a curfew.
“It is not something we’re considering at this time,” said Kenton Anderson, general manager of Westminster Mall.
“Our company doesn’t have a policy like that,” said Heather Drake, a marketing manager at FlatIron Crossing, “and we’re not looking to consider one.”
At Cherry Creek Shopping Center, whose parent company, Taubman, has a similar curfew at a suburban Detroit mall, marketing director Lisa Herzlich said: “We don’t have anything like that, and we haven’t considered anything like that. … Things are pretty good at Cherry Creek.”
The program is a risk, said Rob Callender, trends director for Teenage Research Unlimited, a market research firm.
“When malls institute curfews, it sends a message that teens aren’t trusted or valued,” he said. “They may not be as willing to spend.”
Bottom line, said some teens gathered in the Aurora mall Thursday, is they won’t go to the mall on weekend nights.
“That’s when everyone comes to buy things,” said Adrian Cot, 14.
Shane Strokes, 14, agreed. But “no one wants to go to the mall with their parents.”
Staff writer Jim Kirksey contributed to this report.
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
