KETTERING — Town & Country Shopping Center will require anyone under the age of 18 to be accompanied by an adult to visit the location, a move it says is “in response to considerable property damage, disruption in our tenant’s businesses, and customer safety concerns.”
“This difficult decision was not taken lightly, however, the escalating damage forces this policy to be enacted, to be reevaluated in the future as the situation improves,” a statement posted on the mall’s Facebook page said. “Town & Country Shopping Center now falls in step with similar policies, instituted by the other local & regional malls, in the hopes that this will provide a short-term solution for what we hope is not a long-term problem.”
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The Kettering Police Department has not seen an abnormal increase in calls for service at the shopping center recently, said Officer Tyler Johnson with Kettering Police. News Center 7 has requested any incident reports that were generated for the shopping center over the last six months.
An investigation by News Center 7 found that Town & Country’s new chaperone policy is the strictest at malls in the Greater Dayton region.
The Greene in Beavercreek has a parental escort policy that requires children under the age of 16 after 9 p.m. to be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian over the age of 21.
“We do not plan on implementing any additional rules or altering this rule,” said Allie West, spokeswoman for The Greene.
The Dayton Mall requires those under the age of 16 to be accompanied by an adult, which is a policy that was instituted in the late 90s, a spokeswoman for the Dayton Mall said. There are currently no plans to change the age to 18, the spokeswoman said.
The Mall at Fairfield Commons pointed News Center 7 to its code of conduct, which does not list any types of curfews for teens.