Kenzie Farrell and two girlfriends sit sipping sodas in the food court at Chapel Hill Mall. They're waiting to be picked up by Kenzie's mom. The 16 year old has just applied for a job. If Kenzie is hired, she might have to work after 5 p.m. on weekend nights. But she and her friends -- all under 18 -- are no longer welcome as mall customers during those hours -- unless they're accompanied by an adult.
Farrell: "They're probably going to lose a lot of business. Everybody will go to Summit where there isn't so many rules."
Fifteen-year-old Rachel Baker predicts another kind of financial doom for the mall.
Baker: "Adults don't really want to come, after 5, my mom doesn't want to be in here."
Chapel Hill manager Glenn Miller says that's exactly the reason the mall decided to bar anyone younger than 18 on Friday and Saturday nights after 5 p.m. without adult supervision. He says parking lot fights and large groups of teens roaming the mall were intimidating to older shoppers.
Even Kenzie admits there's been times when people could have gotten the wrong idea about her group.
Farrell: "We were all waiting by the bathroom in what used to be the bedding store, and two of my friends were being very loud. I suppose it looked really bad because there were 10 of us."
The mall's parental escort policy has been in effect for about a month. The first night security turned away 300 teens. Now, Miller says, adults are coming back.
Miller: "The first weekend we did this, not only did we have a noticeable increase in the number of families and older adults shopping, but most stores that I spoke with still met their sales goals for the day."
Akron's Chapel Hill Mall isn't alone in its decision to manage attendance of teenage shoppers. Almost a year ago, Tower City in downtown Cleveland decided to admit unaccompanied teens only until 2:30 p.m. every day. The urban mall is a hub for Cleveland's Regional Transit Authority, which means hundreds of Cleveland School students have easy and frequent access to the mall. Tower City Manager Lisa Kreiger says the impact of the restriction on sales isn't clear yet, but the number of families and shoppers from downtown businesses has increased.
Some malls have reported dramatic results from adult escort policies. The Mall of America in Minneapolis, for example, had 300 teen fights before the policy and only two fights the year after the policy went into effect.
Malachy Kavanagh is spokesman for the International Council for Shopping Centers in New York. He says escort policies are all about luring back paying customers.
Kavanagh: "We've seen upwards of 15-hundred teens can descend on a center and they're not really there to shop."
But aren't they? Kenzie Farrell and teens like her across the country spent 176 Billion -- with a B -- last year on everything from clothes to food to gasoline.
Dale Lewison, a marketing professor at the University of Akron, says teens at malls may be shouldering more than their share of the blame for the decline in foot traffic. He says the Internet and more modern competing shopping centers may be what's keeping grown-ups away.
Lewison: "Right now, the teenagers are standing out because they are the only ones that are hanging out. Some of these malls have lost their magic in terms of attracting customers altogether."
Plus, Lewison says, teens are far more important in retail terms than the malls may suspect.
Lewison: They have a tremendous amount of income. Not only that, because both mom and dad are working, in a lot of cases teenagers have become the purchasing agent for the family."
Besides, some teens say, it's unfair to punish all teens for the rowdy behavior of a few.
Whether this effort to regulate teen behavior continues to spread at malls will probably depend on the bottom line -- and in this shaky economy anything that even hints at being a detriment to sales is likely to come under greater scrutiny.
Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3