Places are starting to think minors are bad for business because they’re more likely to cause disturbances (and often hang around without spending money)
A lot of these businesses are creating curfews for unaccompanied teens after around 2/3pm on Fridays and weekends, banning them on Fridays/weekends altogether, and/or banning them in the afternoon every day of the week (although some of the bans, like at the boardwalk, are after around 8pm). Some are banning them outright.
Another article less Philly centered
"They're being unruly, violating code of conduct, which can include running through the property in large groups, fighting and putting it on TikTok, basically disrupting business and making it uncomfortable for our everyday customers”
Quote from the general manager of the oldest mall in New Jersey
You're banned from just hanging out in places in the US? No wonder Gen Z Americans seem so socially stunted
Yeah, loitering laws have been common for a while. Tmk they're mostly used for harassing non-white and homeless people, but teens in general get some harassment too.
This is the first I've heard of outright banning them, though
teens in general get some harassment too
I remember when I was a teen a news story about malls playing a high pitched sound that old people couldn't hear in order to annoy teens into leaving was going around. Never encountered it myself though.
There are houses I've delivered to that play that sound when you set off a motion sensor. I have no idea what they think it's doing except pissing off everyone in the neighborhood that can hear it.
I'm at the awkward age where I grew up when those became new, but by the time they were really 'a thing,' I had already fucked up my hearing enough to not notice them.
Fuck you store owners.
I remember it being a ring tone that teachers couldn't hear. But every teacher we tried it on could hear it.
I remember people at my hs doing it as a prank through some app in 2020. It worked with our 60 yo grannie math teacher, but some idiot tried it on a 30 yo teacher and got his phone confiscated in the main office.
Yeah and if you think about the fact gen z is the most racially diverse generation, there’s definitely some racial bias tied into ageism here. Gen Z is 50% non-white, and in urban areas especially, kids of color make up the majority
Old white business owners probably see a lot of mostly non-white groups of teens, walking around laughing. Their first instinct is usually that they’re up to something.
A strip mall by the high school in my home town always has kids loitering in a grass corner landscaped area to smoke and chill. The strip mall started playing that high pitched beeping that only youth can hear really loud 24/7 to ward them away.
Almost worse than an outright ban, just treating them like spiders than can be kept away with beeping devices
The poor kids who certainly get brought there by their parents, act up because their head hurts, and then get punished for it. Like, it's got to happen multiple times a day
ride bike to visit friends
it’s 50 miles away
ride on dilapidated roads with a 5 cm bike lane on a major highway
get chased by 5 trucks trying to run me over because it’s gay to ride bikes and takes up too much space on the road
manage to survive Mad Max: Suburbia
finally arrive at friend’s driveway
look at house number
“oh shit it’s the wrong ho-“
gets shot by homeowner for loitering
If you dont have money to spend, you dont leave your house. The only way to have fun without spending money is to break shit
: "Oh, you want a walkable city? What's the matter, lefty? Can't handle some freedom?"
: "You are the only types of people I know who enthusiastically pay to leave your house."
Oh and btw profitability is always falling so don’t feel safe just because you net positive today
Surely keeping the kids locked inside all the time will solve their socialization issues.
Don’t worry, they yearn for the slaughterhouses and industrial plants
This plus the labor laws being rolled back to allow children to work in the coal mines is our modern day enclosure of the commons
I'm sure western Germany is a lot better than the US too, but my little cousins live in a medium-small town in the former
and are within walking distance of a park with a petting zoo (free), a movie theater, some cool shops, big fields that aren’t trespassing to roam, hiking trails, a mini water park, a train station, and, if you walk on one of the trails in the woods for a few minutes, you’ll find a river with a ferry to the other town (which has a big amusement park and a beautiful castle-turned-museum). Their family has a car but say they don't even use it once a month half the time. Forever jealous of them and loved visiting more than anything when I was a kid, and the whole layout/architecture of the town is super pretty, I guess that’s the advantage of being built centuries before cars
It's the money thing primarily.
It really sucks being a teenager in the US right now. A few years ago, they lost a whole year of socialization due to the pandemic, got thrown back into gutted schools, having their rights get stripped away, etc... Now they can't even go anywhere because they can't spend money (and a few badly behaved teens give reason).
Being 19, a few months ago I went somewhere in Pittsburgh that made me show my driver’s license to prove my age and he stared it down like a fucking bartender because apparently I look younger. Wack
CW transphobia/child abuse
And if that wasn't bad enough, they're making penis inspection day a real thing in gym classes
If I ever have kids. I am keeping them FAR AWAY from the rural suburbs as humanly possible. The legit countryside? Sure. But maybe not in
. Because I can say as someone who grew up in bumfuck nowhere, that I worry for my hypothetical child's social development if they are in an American suburb.I'm not asking to have a family in Zurich or Tokyo here (although it would be strongly preferred), even a smaller city like Minneapolis (glory to the People's Republic of Chadesota) would do for this purpose.
Ideally, I would leave the US entirely, even
has a better shot at redeeming itself than the Great Satan.
We aren’t even allowed to experience cheesy mall romances. We’re only allowed to be born, die in school shootings, or be lucky and survive and get shipped off the coal mines or aspire to become PMC landlords
I see this with my younger siblings. When I was in middle/high school, I would fuck off on my bike and be gone for most of the day almost every day of summer - and it's not like I'm a boomer, this was the 2000s. My siblings are that age now and they literally can't go anywhere outside our parents' gated community on their own - no meeting friends at a public pool or beach, no food court meetups that turn into long gamecube sessions around a portable TV plugged into one of the mall's outdoor outlets, no bopping around the touristy area of town hitting up arcades and shit, no "my parents left town" pizza parties, nothing.
Lmao, i couldnt imagine being able to hang out with friends. Living in the countryside, i would have had to bike for 2 hours to get to my friend's place, because my hick school got kids from all over. And surely you must say, biking isnt all that bad. And to that I say: yes it is. The only roads are highways in kettle moraine country (tons of hills) in Wisconsin, the drunkest state. Of coursr i wouldnt go that far on murder roads to see someone
I see this with my younger siblings. When I was in middle/high school, I would fuck off on my bike and be gone for most of the day almost every day of summer - and it's not like I'm a boomer, this was the 2000s. My siblings are that age now and they literally can't go anywhere outside our parents' gated community on their own - no meeting friends at a public pool or beach, no food court meetups that turn into long gamecube sessions around a portable TV plugged into one of the mall's outdoor outlets, no bopping around the touristy area of town hitting up arcades and shit, no "my parents left town" pizza parties, nothing.
No wonder so many of them take refuge in pretend friends such as streamers and vicariously party by watching some I N F L U E N C E R's party.
We must construct party-owned arcades to convince the youth of the superiority of communism.
Deadass, we need to do something like this before the fash beat us to the punch. America is alienation central and think of how many isolated young people we can deprogram, or at the very least sincerely help with shit like this. And the fash did it in Italy
In this boring shithole of a country, we might make some genuine strides on bringing some actual fun.
We gotta do like the Foot Clan does in one of the 90s live action TMNT movies, where they just have a big, sick ass warehouse filled with arcade games, junk food, music, and a half pipe to get teens to hang out there, then lure them into becoming minions of Shredder.
turning the big "ALIENATION" dial and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right
This was a thing in NJ last summer. It's just wild to me that we've robbed people of so much public space and now they're mad that kids go to places of business and don't spend money.
It is impossible to exist in public if you don't have money. You can't just sit down, because all the tables and chairs are in restaurants and there's fuck all public seating. You can't kick a ball around because there's not nearly enough open space. There are so few places where you can just go and exist for free. Wanna meet up with some friends and play some board games? You have to do it at home if you don't want to spend money.
Like seriously, next time you're in a city, just look around at the street and ask yourself "how much of this am I allowed to be in for free". The answer is probably just the road and the pavement. Anywhere else is shops and restaurants and banks and whatever else.
I used to think it was weird there was a crime called "vagrancy". Being in public without a place to go, just staying in one place. Then one day, I realized that public spaces were pretty much the definition of "I'm only here because I want to be somewhere else". There's nothing there, and why would you stop, really?
Vagrancy laws have their roots in keeping jobless people away, literally making not having a job a crime
This is so random, just a 10 yo reddit post with less upvotes than this post lmfao I love it
They're being unruly, violating code of conduct, which can include running through the property in large groups, fighting and putting it on TikTok, basically disrupting business and making it uncomfortable for our everyday customers
Wah. Poor business-owning babies.
I'll tell them the same thing I tell people who pearl-clutch about strikes: YES. I don't care whether your business goes under; fuck yourself.
no society, only spend
