The Christiana Mall Conundrum
In case you don’t already know what’s going on, the Christiana Mall started checking teens’ IDs this past weekend. You now must be 18 year or older or be accompanied by an adult to be at the mall after 5 PM on Friday or Saturday night.
Many Delaware residents and mature shoppers seem to be pleased with the decision, while many teens are not.
Without getting into the specifics of this particular issue, let’s talk about the bigger picture here for a minute.
Where exactly, do we as a community expect our kids to go? If you can’t go to the mall to meet up with your friends and hang out, then where? Gone are the drug store soda counters, the bowling lanes, or any other public gathering place for “kids” under the age of 21 in the evening (if I’m missing someplace here, please let me know). It seems that “going to the mall” has become a part of our culture, if not a right of passage, for teens. For the most part, we as parents and the community (business and private alike) have been all too willing to endorse it. Heck, we all benefited from it. That is, until now.
So where do we go from here? Don’t we have an obligation to help fix the problem rather than turn kids away at the door?
I’m no expert by any means, but this seems to me to be to be an awesome opportunity for the mall, other local businesses and governments to show their involvement with and commitment to the community by helping to solve this problem. The good will earned would be far more valuable than any advertisement money could buy. Why choose to spend money on more security guards instead?
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I would love to see businesses such as the Christina Mall get more actively involved in the community around them as socially aware and responsible members of the community.
Limiting access to the mall means that teenagers will have to find other places to gather. Where can they do that in an atmosphere where they are both safe, and that they are comfortable with?
I’m not sure that the mall would get involved in helping to find alternatives, but it would be a great and positive response on their part to this problem if they did.
Something like helping develop a Skate Park in Newark would be a good start. 🙂
I will boycott Christiana Mall. If my respectful kids aren’t welcome there, then neither am I.
I will convince my friends to encourage their kids to show the mall what an economic impact can do to make people second-guess their decisions.
I love the new atmosphere at Christiana Mall. I can go there and not be bothered by mall rats. The noise level in the mall has gotten better since the ban went into effect. I make sure I take as much of my business to Christiana even though I live just west of Concord Mall and the 202 corridor.