Monroeville Mall Hopeful New Youth Policy Will Bring Positive Change
MONROEVILLE (KDKA) -- After a 17-year-old shot three people at the Monroeville Mall, CBL and Associates, the mall owner, said it will card and eject unaccompanied minors from the mall on Fridays and Saturdays after 6 p.m. beginning on Feb. 27.
"We've examined a lot of our incidences over the past year and found that a lot of the problems that have occurred have been a result of unsupervised youth," Stacey Keating, CBL's corporate marketing specialist, told KDKA money editor Jon Delano on Monday.
"They've instituted this in about 25 of their malls, and it's a very successful policy," noted Monroeville mayor Gregory Erosenko who supports this Youth Escort Policy. "We're certainly going to put our arms around it."
Implementing this will require security guards to check anyone who looks under 18.
"Security officers are going to be prepared to ask for identification if a person's age cannot be easily determined and they appear to be under the age of 18," added Keating.
The carding may occur at mall entrances or within the mall -- with minors required to have a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle, or guardian with them.
Older siblings don't count, and it's one adult for every three children.
But some who've experienced this at other malls are skeptical.
"It creates more problems and doesn't wholly solve the one they're trying to," says Kristie Ferreira of St. Louis.
In her mid-20s, Ferreira shopped and worked at the St. Louis Galleria mall, where she was carded frequently.
"Mall security would decide whether you were worthy of being carded. I am 26, was 26 last time I was at the mall, and got carded numerous occasions."
Ferreira says younger adult shoppers were profiled, and many stopped shopping there with stores losing money.
"I do think sales go down," she says.
But CBL's Keating disagrees.
"Overall, the program has been very beneficial to those malls that have needed to control a teen issue, and sales have gone up because families are coming back to the mall to shop," says Keating.
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