January 14, 2008|By Tanika White | Tanika White,SUN REPORTER
At 2 o'clock on a Friday afternoon at Arundel Mills mall, sun streamed through the skylights illuminating the vast food court. Snacking shoppers filled fewer than half of the brightly hued chairs. And in the relative quiet, the Winter family of Friendship Gardens had a peaceful lunch.
"We're a mall family," said Bill Winter, 33, a truck driver. "We come here and just wander. It's a place where you can take your children, out of the weather, and they can run around. You can get some exercise, have something to eat, have some family time."
Four hours later, after darkness had blanketed the food court skylights, Arundel Mills had become a busier, louder - and considerably younger - place.
A trio of teenage boys piled their trash onto trays and slinked away, leaving one boy behind with the trays.
"Hey!" he bellowed across the food court at his guffawing buddies, as he sullenly collected their garbage. "You triflin', yo."
Across the aisle, another teenager hurriedly filled out an application for after-school work at Popeyes.
"Damn," he yelled, scratching through a line with his pen. "I [expletive] up already."
Ask Bill Winter and he'll tell you: This is exactly why he and his wife shop during the day, before Anne Arundel County's teenagers are freed from the confines of high school classrooms and descend on the Hanover mall in jostling packs.
"The impoliteness, the loud and rowdiness," said Winter. "They're actually screaming at the top of their lungs. Or they'll walk six across the aisle to where you can't walk. They need to learn respect. That's why we don't come on Friday or Saturday nights. It's very nice to be able to come to the mall without the kids running around being a nuisance."
Long a staple of suburban culture, malls are a de facto town green for teenagers across the country. Teens are lured to malls, places to see and be seen, by retailers that cater to them, cheap food and entertainment, and accessible spaces in areas where there are few other places to go.
But incidents such as Tuesday's stabbing of a 17-year-old boy at The Mall in Columbia have refocused the spotlight on young people. Their presence in malls - many times in high-energy groups - leaves some adult shoppers and merchants intimidated.
From her post at a first-floor jewelry kiosk in Towson Town Center, Samikshya Mahat, 18, says she has seen quite a few scary incidents over the past year.
"I've seen a girl and a guy fighting. I've seen a guy pull out a hammer during a fight," said Mahat, who works at the Silver and Stone House. "There's a lot of high school and middle school kids here for no reason, and they start to fight."
Winter acknowledges that he, too, was a mall rat, growing up in small-town Golden Ring. His friends, he confesses, sometimes shoplifted.
"So, I'd rather see [teenagers] at the mall than have them out in the woods drinking or getting high or breaking in somewhere," Winter said, stopping to wipe ketchup from his 5-year-old daughter's face. "But when I hear that kind of language now, I stop 'em and I'll be like, `Excuse me. I have little children here. Can you watch your language?' They should understand: You're not 5 years old. You're not allowed to run around screaming and jumping on things, cussing and carrying on."
Malls have also been the scenes of serious crimes in recent years.
In February 2005, a popular St. Paul's teacher and dean was killed during a botched robbery in the parking lot at Towson Town Center. A teen was stabbed to death at the mall in 2002.
In November 2006, a 16-year-old Annapolis High School student and a U.S. Secret Service agent were shot and wounded by an 18-year-old at Westfield Annapolis Mall.
Two teenagers have been charged in last week's nonfatal stabbing at The Mall in Columbia, which police believe was drug-related.
Paco Underhill, author of the book Call of the Mall, noted that the type of violence that occurred at The Mall in Columbia could have occurred anywhere.
"It could have happened in a school parking lot," said Underhill, CEO of Envirosell in New York City. "The fact that it happened at the mall is testament to it being the town center."
And not all crowds of kids are alike, some teenagers lament. Just because they are in the mall, in a group, cussing and cracking up, does not mean they are going to stab someone.
"Most of the time, when adults see a pack of kids, they think we're here to start trouble," said Catherine Burgett, 14, a freshman at Meade High School. "We're just hanging out."
Catherine and her pals are typical of many teen suburban mall-goers. She and Amber Dowling, 14, and Justine Spencer, 15, strolled Arundel Mills in slim jeans, printed hoodies and colorful beads from Hot Topic, giggling and shrieking and bumping each other. They walked four across - Catherine, then Amber, then Justine, who was glued to her boyfriend, Emerson Pineda, 15.
"Sometimes we're loud, yeah," said Emerson. "We're loud because we're having fun. You can't expect to see adults at a bar not being loud."
