Northridge
-
5/25/2009
The Northridge mall has too many children there. I walked in there were just wall to wall kids. Little tiny children. They were about Thirteen or Fourteen at best. I watched as load after load of children were being dropped off by their parent. The recession has made the Northridge Fashion center a place to drop off your children to be babysat for about Seven hours and then picked up. I saw throngs of children buying one drink or a hot dog and then just running around the place yelling and screaming. There were just soo many that there was no way they could remotely be controlled by the staff. I saw child after child being told to quiet down and more replaced them. Some were kicked out by staff for being noisy and it was almost as if they multiplied and came back in different waves and forms.The staff semed like they were doing a good job bu how can you combat Three hundred Teenagers with no parents around at all?I could not walk without bumping into some little kid.I heard the 'N' word more then I heard 'hello' and wondered if this is more a greeting then a statement? No one, for about Three hours, bought a movie ticket and did more then buy a small item and then just walked around. Finally, the police came out and arrested some kids for something and then everybody went away. I do not get it. Were did these kids go? Why did they leave when the police came? It was about Six in the evening? Some security guys got the rest of these kids to go home, but at one point, there were about Two Hundred kids.I will never go to the Northridge Fashion center if its going to be a big babysitting area and do not plan to buy a home in the area because of this fact.If the parents of Northridge care so little about their children that they just drop them off at some mall to let them mill around for hours doing nothing but bothering the regular patrons, then I do not want to be part of it. Children go on to College and move away. It is a statistical fact that buyer loyalty in adalescant markets has no staying power and the place you went to when you were Twelve is not the place you will go to when you are Twenty. It takes about Ten years for the market to return as you may let your Teenagers go there. That is about Twenty Five years before anyone in your family returns to the mall and that's only to buy a soda!Adults over Thirty Five will go there year after year and take their children also.If you bought a home in Northridge, you are not going to run off and go to college, get a job in another big city or get married to someone out of state. Chances are, you are already married and want to stay.You also want the convenience of shopping at a mall close to your home.Now, people in Northridge have to go to the Topanga mall not to deal with hordes of little children. I would like to see anyone take their family to the Northridge Mall on Friday night. It is just not a good family place on Fri. or Sat. night.Everyone is missing out on a much more stable market that has a longer and more durable economy.I would not be shocked if the place was not having economic problems as we speak.Using the mall to take care of your children in the evening wile you go play is really just sort of weird. How is a mall a better babysitting tool then yourself? You had you children, not the mall. Get to know them and have their friends over to your house and stop bugging the people the really want to spend money and doing it year after year.
jim | Los Angeles, CA