Bye-Bye, Mall Rats

At many teen-choked shopping centers, managers have started booting kids unless they're with a parent

Comstock Select / Corbis

Teenagers with Shopping Bags

Curfew has never been a popular term with teens. But lately the C-word has retailers and even law-enforcement officers looking for synonyms to describe the way many malls like the St. Louis Mills have started ejecting teens at 6 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays unless they're with a parent or guardian. "I hate to call it a curfew," Carl Wolf, chief of police in Hazelwood, Mo., says of the Mills' seven-month-old policy. "I like to call it a family night."

That's certainly the most wholesome spin for the growing movement among U.S. malls to take back the night from the hordes...

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