Retail Watchers

Teenagers and young without parents will be kicked out after 4 PM at the Valley Plaza Mall Target in Bakersfield.

There were reports of shoplifting and fights.

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/ ... 281150.php

I guess malls aren't so reliant on impulse purchases anymore from teens who come to "hang out"? Then again, it seems now, one dispute or one social media post about something or another can lead to chaos. Look at what happened on Friday at Union Square in NYC. Some influencer said he was giving away gaming consoles. When that went sideways chaos ensued. Said influencer has now been arrested and charged with inciting a riot.

mjhale wrote: ↑August 6th, 2023, 9:50 am I guess malls aren't so reliant on impulse purchases anymore from teens who come to "hang out"? Then again, it seems now, one dispute or one social media post about something or another can lead to chaos. Look at what happened on Friday at Union Square in NYC. Some influencer said he was giving away gaming consoles. When that went sideways chaos ensued. Said influencer has now been arrested and charged with inciting a riot.

It looks like the ban was instituted by Target within the Target store, not by/within the entire mall. At least that's my take.

Target should kick any customer out who appears to be causing trouble/not shopping. I don't care if they are 16 or 86. I'm surprised the awful Reno Target doesn't kick out whoever keeps going and trashing their store with clothing all over the floors, graffiti back in the spray paint area on the shelving/peg boards, etc. These are leigitimate reasons to kick people out when they are vandalizing the store.

To implement a blanket policy like this but further say they can't check ID to verify age (also you'd think they'd want to check ID to know who these people are who they want to kick out, to document for potential trespass charges in the future) basically seems to make this a non-policy.

This also easily opens the door to discrimination when they are not uniformly checking ID and kicking out anyone who is simply looking as if they are under age. For instance two show up who do nothing wrong but both look 18, and one is 18 and one is 20 and Target decides to kick the 20 year old out because they "look 18" and for no other reason, and it just so happens the 20 year old is some other race but the 18 year old is a white kid. And for whatever reason despite both minding their own business looking around the store the 18 year old is allowed to remain in the store and nobody attempts to kick that one out. First issue is your policy doesn't say you kick out 20 year olds. Second issue is it appears you are discriminating based on race by kicking one person out but not the other who were both just looking around the store.

I expect this non policy to either get a lot more strict (check ID at entry) or most likely just go away entirely.

storewanderer wrote: ↑August 6th, 2023, 6:40 pm To implement a blanket policy like this but further say they can't check ID to verify age (also you'd think they'd want to check ID to know who these people are who they want to kick out, to document for potential trespass charges in the future) basically seems to make this a non-policy.

This also easily opens the door to discrimination when they are not uniformly checking ID and kicking out anyone who is simply looking as if they are under age. For instance two show up who do nothing wrong but both look 18, and one is 18 and one is 20 and Target decides to kick the 20 year old out because they "look 18" and for no other reason, and it just so happens the 20 year old is some other race but the 18 year old is a white kid. And for whatever reason despite both minding their own business looking around the store the 18 year old is allowed to remain in the store and nobody attempts to kick that one out. First issue is your policy doesn't say you kick out 20 year olds. Second issue is it appears you are discriminating based on race by kicking one person out but not the other who were both just looking around the store.

I expect this non policy to either get a lot more strict (check ID at entry) or most likely just go away entirely.

They may not check ID's, but if they are asking someone to leave, that person can most certainly pull out an ID to show to the employee voluntarily that they are old enough to be there!

BillyGr wrote: ↑August 7th, 2023, 1:24 pm

They may not check ID's, but if they are asking someone to leave, that person can most certainly pull out an ID to show to the employee voluntarily that they are old enough to be there!

All I can say is I feel bad for the employee who is tasked with enforcing this policy. Or I should say employees because they better have 2-3 of them.

At the point someone is asked to leave, then that person questions why they are being asked to leave, and is told due to looking under 18, then pulls out ID showing they are 20, I suspect by that point the situation will have already escalated a lot further than it should have. And Target will have also just lost a customer for life.