The community of Fresno's objections to the proposed River Park curfew was cited in a recent MSNBC.com story about teen curfews at malls. The story talks about the nation's strictest mall curfew, being put in place in Cleveland's Tower City Center, a mall which will ban everyone under 18 after 2:30 p.m. unless they are accompanied by adults. It will be interesting to see if their community will sit still for that.
Fresno's biggest enclosed shopping mall, Fashion Fair, is taking the exact opposite strategy of Cleveland and the others, welcoming its teenage customers, and leasing space to their favorite stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, Gap, Forever 21, Urban Outfitter, American Eagle, Claire's, Metro, Wet Seal and many others.
The story recounts trends from other malls that have instituted curfews, but some are rethinking them after protests from civil rights organizations. After first announcing a curfew, Lance-Kashian, managers of River Park, is still in the process of polling the community and has not yet decided on a final course of action. We'll see what finally happens here. To read the whole story, click here.
To read the Opinion Talk blog on the controversy, click here and here.
To put "things" in context: Cleveland has a far worse "gang" problem than Fresno does!