Mall to enforce no loitering rule; no plans for curfew
Hot Springs Mall intends to start actively enforcing its no loitering policy in an effort to address growing issues with unruly teens and avoid a curfew like the one a Little Rock shopping mall plans to start next month.
In response to problems with rowdy teens, Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock next month plans to institute a curfew on Friday and Saturday nights requiring anyone younger than 18 to be accompanied by an adult.
“I don’t want to be that harsh,” Scott Green, general manager of Hot Springs Mall, told The Sentinel-Record Tuesday. “I would rather handle it a different way. I want kids coming in here as long as they act like young adults.”
Green said the plan is to start actively enforcing the mall’s no loitering policy, which is posted along with other store rules at each of the mall’s three main entrances. “That’s the very first rule, no loitering,” he said.
While Green stressed that even though the mall hasn’t had near the level of problems Park Plaza has been experiencing, “it is kind of a problem” that has been steadily building for about six months.
“On any given Friday or Saturday night, we have a few dozen kids who come here and two-thirds of them are just fine, and I’m glad they’re here. But then you have eight or 10 or 12 who are being loud and darting in to steal a
handful of candy from Candy Craze. Running around kicking trash cans, pushing each other into other people. Just stupid stuff, but it scares some people,” he said.
“All they see is a group of young people and some are kind of smart-mouthed. You tell them to leave and they just go out one entrance and come back in another,” he said, noting they can be intimidating to older shoppers.
“I had an older man who complained the kids were running and bumped into him. To an 80-year-old person, that can be dangerous, but a 14-year-old doesn’t understand that and I get it. But we can’t let them just run amok in here.”
He said he met with Hot Springs Police Chief Jason Stachey and other officers “who have helped me come up with a plan,” which includes having uniformed officers at the mall on Friday and Saturday nights, both inside and in the parking lot.
“Our security does a wonderful job here, but they can only do so much,” he said.
Under the loitering policy, if someone is causing a problem and is asked to leave, refusal to do so is considered criminal trespassing and the person can be arrested, he said.
“We have not been doing that. We’ve kind of just been putting up with it. We’re not going to do that anymore. If it is deemed you need to leave, you will be asked to leave and if you refuse we will enforce the policy. And that includes the parking lot, too. You have to leave the property,” he said.
Since police officers will be at the mall the enforcement of the policy “will be instant” and “you could go to jail,” he said, but stressed, “I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to put somebody in the system for making a stupid mistake.
“I know how it is when you’re a kid and you’re with a group of friends and you don’t know how to back out or back down and your mouth gets you in trouble. I hate that and don’t want that to happen, but we can’t have them running amok.”
He said loitering is defined as “not having a purpose,” and for those kids who are actually shopping with their friends and hanging out it’s not a problem. “You don’t even have to buy anything. We’re not going to bother you. This is strictly for the troublemakers who are being disruptive.”
He noted many parents drop their kids at the mall “and use us as a baby sitter and I’m OK with that. That’s inherent with malls. It’s part of the gig.”
Park Plaza’s policy is set to go into effect April 7, just a few months after Little Rock police had to remove dozens of teenagers from the mall on Dec. 26 after a police spokesman said they were “causing fear,” according to a recent Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story. Police removed 75 to 100 youths between the ages of 12 and 17 that evening. No arrests were made.
Other malls around the country also had youth altercations the day after Christmas, typically one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Some of those led to multiple arrests.
Green was general manager of the Pines Mall in Pine Bluff from 2012 to 2015 before taking over at the Hot Springs Mall in August 2015, and said they had similar problems there, which prompted a curfew like Park Plaza is planning.
“By and large the kids here aren’t bad at all. They are just being kids. But we have that one group of bad apples that are pretty bad,” he said.
“We have to protect this asset. Just like the (Hot Springs) Convention Center or downtown, this is an entity where people come and we have to protect that and make it safe for the people.”