I have no problem being asked for my ID at a bar. I realize I don't look 21. The bouncers need to ensure that I'm not, as one of my friends so eloquently put it, "a 16-year-old fake Minnesotan."
I have a slight problem with being carded at 18-plus comedy clubs.,”
I seem to get carded every time I step out of the house.
I have no problem being asked for my ID at a bar. I realize I don't look 21. The bouncers need to ensure that I'm not, as one of my friends so eloquently put it, "a 16-year-old fake Minnesotan."
I have a slight problem with being carded at 18-plus comedy clubs. Especially when said carding is enacted on me and not the actual 18-year-old I am with.
And I have a bigger problem being questioned at R-rated movies. You've got to give me at least 17.
But by far my most devastating, aggravating, embarrassing carding incident happened when I was running late for work at my Express-ly evil retail job in Bloomington, Minn., a couple summers ago. Apparently I couldn't even pass for 16 – the age you needed to be to enter the Mall of America unaccompanied by someone over 21 after 6 p.m. on weekends.
A police officer stopped me and waited as I awkwardly fumbled through my purse, finally extracting a driver's license. I flashed it at her but she stopped me again.
"I need to take a look at that," she sighed.
I guess at the high-security fortress that is the mall, simply having a driver's license isn't proof of being 16.
The age restriction policy at the Mall of America has always seemed ridiculous to me. It became even more ridiculous as of Oct. 7, 2005, when the mall changed the weekend ban time for unescorted teens from 6 to 4 p.m. That means at 4:01, my 19-year-old brother could not bring my 15-year-old brother to Sportmart to buy new skates for his job as a hockey ref.
I started working at the Mall of America part-time the summer before my sophomore year of high school, which would have made me 15. I find it odd that someone that age can work in the back room of Nordstrom for four hours, but can't go shopping afterward if her shift doesn't end before 4.
Now, for all you Wisconsinites, the mall carding policy is coming to a theater near you … literally. Mayfair Mall – home of the popular after-hours AMC Theatre hangout – announced Friday that it plans to enact a weekend age restriction policy. No details about the specific ages or times to be affected have been released, but the plan is being promoted as an effort to reduce teen congregating and corresponding "trouble."
I see the desire to keep the malls safe, for adults and children alike. I also see the economic motivations of some Mayfair shops, who say people are deterred from shopping on weekends because of the possibility of unruly kids.
But I don't see how keeping teens out of Mayfair is going to solve either of these problems. From my experience at the much-bigger Mall of America, teenagers weren't usually the ones causing problems. When I was working until 2 a.m., it wasn't the 15-year-olds I was afraid of when walking out to the parking lot.
And as far as the "deterred sales" argument goes, if fear of mall crime really has caused a major decrease in shoppers, why can I still never find a parking spot at Mayfair on a Saturday night? And how will the new policy help sales at the plethora of tween-targeted Mayfair stores like American Eagle, Aeropostale and Abercrombie & Fitch?
I can only hope Mayfair doesn't pull a Mall of America and institute a 4 p.m. curfew that basically prevents teenagers from going to the mall at all on a Friday. Teenage girls are a huge market, and school/work/play/rehearsal/homework generally prevents them from shopping during the week.
But 13-year-olds barred from a dinnertime trip to Hollister won't be the only ones angered by the age restriction policy. You can bet I'll throw a fit if I'm carded when entering Mayfair.
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