Well, I can understand their perspective. But, this is the most suicidal business move they could make.
Our local mall did the same thing around 15 years ago.
At the time, the mall was full. It had record stores, stylish clothing stores, jewelry stores, a major National grocery store (Safeway), a very large department store, hair salons, nail salons, food stands, restaurants, and tons of other places. Every spot in the mall was full. And, the mall was always packed with people of all ages.
But, the mall decided that it had enough of the trouble with kids getting into fights, arguments, or just loitering. So, they passed a similar rule. Essentially anyone under 18 was required to be with an adult.
About 6 months after instituting the rule, they realized they had made a tragic mistake. Then, they dropped the no unaccompanied minors rule, but it was too late. The kids had already lost interest in going there.
Well, within the year, the mall was quiet. There were no customers at all (of any age). The shops were empty, businesses went out of business completely. Everything went out of the mall. All the restaurants, all the clothing stores (except the granny clothes store), the music store went out, the department store went out, the pizza place went out (the last good pizza place our town had - and we haven't had good pizza since).
In short, within the year all that remained of a previously full mall was:
One granny clothing store
Safeway
Zales Jewelers
and the town's only major book store.
And, as for people in the mall, well there were none. The mall resorted to letting it's space be used for mall walking grannies. That was the only foot traffic you saw in the mall... grandma's walking in circles.
So, they traded all the teenagers and all the businesses for grandmas who were only there to walk in peace and quiet (and not spending any money at all).
They still had a security guard though to keep the trouble down (except no one was there to cause trouble).
After about 7 years like that, the Safeway (which had a loyal customer base) closed. Leaving the mall with no draw at all.
The mall continued to be sitting mostly empty for the next 7 years or so after Safeway closed.
Space rates dropping, the parking lot getting used for nothing but town snow storage and the occasional weekend automotive fleet liquidation sale.
About 2 years ago, they finally hit a point where they realized that there was nothing they could do to get any new businesses in the building. They had tried for so many years and were 100% unsuccessful. They killed the Mall with that fatal decision, and spent 15 years losing money and sitting on huge amounts of empty space with no renters and no customers.
So, last year they knocked the building down after letting the fire department torch it for practice. And, plowed the whole building and parking lot out of there. Scraped it all down to bare dirt.
Target purchased the lot, and is building a new store and new mall to take it's place.
The old one had such a history of sitting empty, that merely rennovating it wouldn't restore it to profitability. The only option was to have a new company come in and build an entirely new building to draw in customers.
So, getting rid of a few kids cost them something extreme. Millions and millions of dollars. And, the expense of sitting on an empty building that was costing them money.
But, hey, after 15 years, the lot will finally be of some use again.
They should have just bull dozed it when they first kicked the kids out. At least then they wouldn't have spent the last 15 years losing money.
A smarter move would have been to just monitor the kids, have security that looked more intimidating than gerbil, and let the kids stay. Then, tons of businesses would have continued to make money and so would the mall.
It's easy to say that the kids are not spending money. That is, until you kick them out and discover the difference in profits. And, besides, even a kid who doesn't spend a dime will generate income for the businesses.
Think about it. If you are looking to buy something, are you going to go to the place that is always empty, or are you going to go somewhere that looks like the place everyone wants to be?
Even if the kids aren't spending money, they provide the image of popular shops. And, the image of popularity is the best sales tool available.
Think about it... Why do clubs let good looking girls in for free? To get guys to think it's the place to be. No good looking girls, no guys. No guys, you have an empty club. And, who wants to go to an empty club?
The same thing holds true for malls. Why would I want to go somewhere to shop if it doesn't appear than anyone else wants to be there?
Kids make places look busy. Busy places look like the place to be. The place to be, is where everyone will go to spend their money.
But, hey, at least the grannies got an empty mall to walk around for 15 years. And, while they were there, they could buy their granny panties, and the shirts that looked like a sparkly 1960's couch.
Thing is, there is a shortage of old people who don't live on fixed incomes. So, you can't keep a mall running on grannies who live on less than $500 a month.
Anyway, they'll see it for themselves. Once you kick them out, it's too late. Removing the rule will not bring the kids back. And, without the kids, they're just living on reserves until they run out of money and renters.
Oh well. At least they'll have a place for grandma to walk in comfort with air conditioning and no rowdy teenagers.
Oh, and just for the record, I'm not a kid. I've got a family of my own, kids, and have personally watched the history I described above.
