betsy yagla photo

Joseph Valesquez, Jesse Castro, Zion Berrios and Mario Esquilin. “We here ‘cause there’s nowhere else to go,” says Berrios.

Attention mallrats: Go home. The mall is not a hang out place. At least that's what mall, police and city officials say.

With a recession threatening retail holiday profits, the Milford mall is trying to make customers feel safe and welcome by cracking down on loitering teens.

Westfield Connecticut Post mall officials asked CT Transit bus service to halve the number of buses arriving at the mall on Saturday nights, which would have essentially banished city teens from the suburban mall. The $1 hour-long bus ride is the preferred mode of transport for many New Haven–area youth.

"I understand their concern around public safety," says Che Dawson, New Haven's youth services director. "But I don't know if it's the best idea to cut back on buses, because it does make you feel like they're targeting a certain type of kid."

CT Transit did not grant the mall's request ("It's by far the heaviest traveled route in New Haven," says CT Transit general manager, David Lee), but did cut back from nine to seven trips on Saturday nights from downtown New Haven to the mall.

In 2006 there were at least two large fights at the mall involving teens — one involving 100 kids after a high school dance party in November and an even larger brawl in the parking lot. A gaggle of teens in hoodies may intimidate a middle-age shopper, but not all mallrats are hoodlums looking to start trouble.

"It's just a place for us to hang out and meet people," says 15-year-old Jesse Castro who's from Meriden. Castro and three friends get dropped off by Castro's mom around 6 p.m. and picked up hours later when the mall closes. "We just walk around, get food and look at stores," adds Castro's friend Joseph Velasquez, while sipping on a soda. "We're here cuz there's nowhere else to go," says 16-year-old Zion Berrios. "We ain't got nothing else to do," echoes their friend Mario Esquilin between furtive glances at his phone.

The boys spend hours slowly taking laps around the mall and checking out girls, but they're not shopping.

In fact, most of the teens we spoke with at the mall weren't there to shop. They were hanging out. For them the mall is the social equivalent of a teenage town square: They're there to see and be seen.

That's exactly the problem says Milford police spokesman Vaughan Dumas. "The mall is a place of business," he says. "When you get the number of teens that go there to just hang out it starts interfering with people who are there for a legitimate reason — to go shopping. Those shoppers, their perception is that by seeing these large number of teens is they feel unsafe."

To ease shoppers' fears, the mall has hired extra security guards and off-duty officers to enforce its 17-point code of conduct, says Lee Sterling, the mall's regional marketing director. That means no threatening, no annoying others through boisterous behavior, no loitering and no walking in groups of more than three.

"We can't even be standing here talking to you now: We're loitering," said one girl in a group of three friends when a reporter stopped them and joined their group.

Milford Mayor James Richetelli, who's the father of three teens, says teens are causing the bulk of the problems at the mall. "My kids love going to the mall," the mayor says in a phone interview. "But I want, when my kids go to the mall, I want them to be safe and to be there for a reason."

Does that mean the mayor doesn't want his kids to hang out at the mall? "Um ...," he pauses and begins tentatively: "It's OK to be there, to walk around and to go to the food court and things like that. But to go there with no objective? No. That's not OK."

Malls in suburban, affluent areas are cracking down on teens nation-wide, says Teen Research Unlimited's trends director Rob Callendar. "People who run the malls are looking out for the comfort and peace of mind of older shoppers who are intimidated by teens," he says. "Our research shows that teens don't really want to be singled out as a threat, but adults are threatened by teens."

When asked if his group of friends is a threat, Castro is taken aback. "We're just hanging out — where else are we supposed to go?"

byagla@newhavenadvocate.com