I have no respect for people with no shopping agenda.
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I was stunned to find my little story on Boing Boing, being blogged about from Cory Doctorowâs airship (thanks so much!!). I appreciate the comments of the people here.
I would like to point out one issue. In the photo, one of the steampunk enthusiasts DOES have a knife on her belt. However, she was not at the mall that kicked us out. That photo is from the first meetup at a different carousel. You can argue whether she should or should not have a knife with her, although I do not believe it violates the law, but I can assure you that it did not influence this incident as that particular person was in L.A. that day and could not attend.
We were not carrying fantasy weapons (or real ones) that would make us frightening in a small mall. We were using common sense. Unfortunately, it wasnât enough to keep us from being kicked out.
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Yeah. . . but only because the cops. . . the REAL cops. . . were more rational than the amll cops.
Heck, it wouldnât even have to be a knife. My father used to get kicked out of malls all the time for carrying a camera. Not, like, âback in the dayâ but right up until he was in a wheelchair 2 years ago - well after everyoneâs phone came with a camera. There was one outdoor shopping center that kicked him out several times, even though it had a playground and parents were always taking pictures of their kids there. Another mall had a camera store but would still hassle him for carrying one.
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Stymied-punks, clearly.
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I am now, like.
Iâve had one since I was a bairn. My excuse is I bite my fingernails & grind my teeth, so all my natural pointiness is gone. Seriously, any coin smaller than ÂŁ1, I canât pick up off a smooth floor without a knife. Plus, like a hip-flask and a handkerchief, it is one of the accoutrements of a gentleman.
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Probably beyond the beds & the baths.
Theyâd be shot.
I had to Google âMallâ. Apparently it is a three dimensional version of Amazon.com.
Amazon.com doesnât have a carousel⌠unless you count the part of the page that shows me more things to buy⌠kudos Jeff Bezos. Now all Amazon needs is fountains and a place for the elderly to walk.
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Cory went to SEED - an alternative school for freaks and geeks. Most kids who attend those schools are generally âaltâ in attitude and appearance. College Park is a higher end, albeit small, mall. So they very obviously didnât want kids from SEED hanging out there - rabble rousers that they are. I, on the other hand, attended North Toronto and was as prep as prep could be. I never got so much as a second glance in malls - or if I did it was one of admiration and jealousy for being so incredibly handsome, well-dressed, and charming. 
Iâm a firm believer in âtheir house, their rulesâ when it comes to business. There are certainly people I donât want coming into my place of business and scaring off paying customers. I reserve the right to choose whom I do business with. Donât like it? Take your business someplace else. However, malls are a bit of a sticky situation legally speaking. While they are private property, theyâre also quasi-public spaces. And in quasi-public spaces people - at least in the US - have First Amendment rights. So in this case they could very possibly sue the mall and win. ButâŚand thereâs always a but, isnât there? Since 9/11 under the Patriot Act the First Amendment has been somewhat curtailed - wearing masks in public as one example. And then there are whatever state laws are in place about public safety and security and it all becomes pretty messy.
The fact that the mall manager didnât know how to deal with this speaks volumes of the incompetence of the mallâs owners. Now they have a ton of negative publicity on their hands. Whatâs worse they would have none, or could have easily turned this into free, positive PR. Now a savy business owner would see the opportunity here and invite these people to come to their mall, thereby demonstrating to the public theyâre fun and friendly. And it would give the kids and parents a laugh to look at the harmless weirdos as they shop. So this isnât so much a tale about corporate malfeasance as it is about corporate stupidity. Complain about it all you like, but money talks and BS walks. Nothing speaks to a corporation like taking your consumer dollars somewhere else.
Time for a flash mob
I never said it wasnât trespass; I just said youâre probably forgotten a week later. I dunno about your childhood mall, maybe they really did have enough rage to distinguish the good kids (with wallets) from the bad kids (with skateboards) and send the latter to the slam. I still think most mall cops are happy to punch the time clock and collect the paycheck, and couldnât give a damn about steampunk clothes - unless it gets them in trouble.
Aussie here. I grew up in the 1970s in a Melbourne suburb called Doncaster. The local shopping mall was called Doncaster Shopping Town. My mum used to take me there every week. It must have been Westfieldâs first Melbourne acquisition, and possibly the first outside Sydney. After they took it over they renamed it to Westfield Shopping Town but nobody calls it that. I imagine thats where the name comes from. (sorry).
Iâm enjoying imagining the reaction of my past and current employers reading your post⌠âWait, what? We can make him follow even our stupidest rules? Does he know about this?â
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As a member of an associated steampunk group, I can assure you that none of us dispute the right of the mallâs management to selectively kick people out for no good reason. However, if they are going to quote policy, their policy needs to be both accessible and applicable. The mallâs management was slow to respond and then implied untruths about the group in question. The community didnât take well to that.
And part of the reason that we are raising a bit of a stink is specifically because these phantom policies are disproportionately and unfairly applied to people in other subcultures and groups. I want to make it harder for small-minded people to get away with discrimination against other groups and if this is what it takes to get people talking, weâll run with it.
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Letâs not jump to conclusions. The security officer on the ground doesnât get to make the rules - their employer or âthe clientâ does. Sometimes those rules are stupid and senseless. You still have to follow the rules and adhere to your employerâs policies.
I must admit to being somewhat impressed by this idea you have of a mall-world populated by wise, or even foolish, mall-owners and shop-management, calmly deciding the rules of their little republic, and holding evening classes in the rules and regulations for the education of the elite corps of policy operatives to be recruited via specialist employment agencies.
Are you insane?
None of these people have a clue what theyâre doing. Theyâre bumbling along like the rest of us, reacting to things, many of them contrary to their expectations, and therefore reacting badly.
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I was out this evening with a few people connected to those involved in the incident.
I got the impression that the management involved may view the situation as a mistake; I have been told that they may have quietly contacted the group offering them free carousel tickets⌠not exactly, in my view, a sufficient response, but certainly a suggestion that this wasnât a decision that they thought was the right one, regardless of whether theyâll publicly back their employees. It has apparently made the local papers, and is likely an embarrassment at this point. Thereâs some suggestion that the mall cops may have acted the way they did here because of a group apparently dressed in âvampireâ-like costumes who had caused problems some time before.
The mall is fortunate that those involved are not particularly aggressive about these matters; one couple this evening has apparently strongly suggested that people in the group consider legal action against the mall, and is continuing to do so, while a few people in communities in the area who didnât attend but could have would have had their lawyers on the phone before the police arrived.
Youâve clearly never had a shitty employer. There are many of them, and countless people are subject to their whims.
In fact, since you seem agog at the notion that people might be forced to follow rules and policies or else lose their job, Iâm starting to suspect youâve never had an employer of any variety.
Iâm the original author and fellow Steampunk, of the local article that appeared in the San Diego Reader (considered largest alternative paper in the USA since 1972) on this topic that seems to have created a world wide stir. Weâve been on ABC TV local news here in San Diego, CA where the incident occurred and on ABC Los Angeles. We were contacted by CNN but they didnât follow through with anything. The incident is being mentioned on hundreds of blogs, comment sites, Facebook, Twitter and more. My editor now wants to give me a cover story for the Reader about Steampunk. What all this does, is bring more positive attention to Steampunk and being different. Viva La Difference!! Here is a link to the article that has generated the discussion. Thanks for all your comments! http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2014/feb/11/stringers-carlsbad-mall-security-boots-steampunks/
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