Homeland security gone crazy?

[Bluzmann57]

www.qctimes.com/ and then go to archive search for either Simon malls or Saturday, December 27. It seems that Simon Mall, aka Northpark and Southpark malls here, have decided to open later than they used to. There is a whole group of people, most of then seniors, who like to walk where its warm and they don't have to fight the crowds. A few merchants, such as the food court merchants, like to help them out with coffee, pastries, and a place to sit and socialize. It gets cold here in the heartland, and seniors should be commended for trying to walk and stay in shape. But this mall has decided that in the interest of security, they will not open their doors until 9:00 a.m, rather than 7. This seems to be a bit extreme to me. Banning (mostly) seniors, many of whom are veterans, from being in the mall until 9 sounds like blatant commercialism to me. I think that if the mall is that unsafe maybe we shouldn't shop there at all.

[aquart]

1. That's not security.

That's cutting costs.

[Bluzmann57]

2. The reason given was security

We are in code orange, after all. I realize that this is a privately owned company that has a right to make their own business decisions, but honestly, are any of these old folks really hurting anything? No. My parents have gone up there a few times to walk, so it's sort of personal here.

[htuttle]

4. Anyone ever see the '9/11 excuses' site?

I don't remember where I have the link, but there is a website out there full of all the statements and press releases where corporations, state and federal government agencies have blamed all manner of problems on 9/11.

Some of them are quite ridiculous, like 'Due to the attacks on September 11, we were unable to finish renovating our Nevada office on schedule...', etc...

No doubt, the same thing is happening with 'Due to Homeland Security purposes...'

[Bridget Burke]

3. The mall is too cheap to pay for a couple of security guards.

They need a larger staff to open early. One would think they got enough money from the community to offer this simple service. Just saying "the old folks only buy coffee & donuts" sounds worse than "we're protecting you from evil terrorists".

I don't know about the shopping situation in your area. If there are enough alternatives, I'd recommend shoppers going elsewhere for "regular" shopping & letting the offending malls know exactly why.