Pemberton Square mall will in a couple of weeks start enforcing what it calls a “youth escort policy,” general manager Renee Williams said Friday

Beginning May 29, to enter the mall after 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, those younger than 18 must be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian or relative who is 21 or older.

Mall officials, Williams said, decided to institute the ban after unruliness by unsupervised youths at the 3505 Pemberton Square Blvd. facility resulted in an “uncomfortable atmosphere on Friday and Saturday nights.”

Lt. Bobby Stewart of the Vicksburg Police Department said police have been called to the mall 15 times this year in response to reports of assaults and other disturbances.

“Over 60 percent of the bans that have occurred in recent months at Pemberton Square mall are the result of actions committed by unsupervised youth,” a fact sheet handed out by mall officials said.

As many as 250 unsupervised young people can be found at the mall on Friday and Saturday nights, the statement said.

“We want young people to continue to come to the mall,” Williams said. “We’re just asking them to be accompanied by parents or guardians for six of the 71 hours that we’re open every week.”

The mall is open 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 1 to 6 p.m. Sundays.

The new rules won’t completely forbid unaccompanied youths from entering Pemberton stores on weekend nights.

The mall will not require escorts for under-18 patrons who use exterior entrances at Garfield’s Restaurant, Belk, Dillard’s or JCPenney, or for unsupervised young people who use the entrance adjacent to the mall cinema so long as they “go directly to the movie theater, buy a ticket, and go in the theater,” Williams said.

Additionally, under-18 mall employees will be given identification badges that will allow them to walk mall hallways unimpeded.  

Mall security will enforce the policy and supervise an area near the mall’s southwestern entrance where violators can arrange to be picked up, Williams said. Those who refuse to leave may be prosecuted, said a mall statement.

Todd Anderton, a marketing official with Tennessee-based CBL & Associates, which owns the mall, said an “almost identical” policy banning unescorted youths on weekend nights has been in place for more than a year at Meridian’s CBL-owned Bonita Lakes mall.

“It’s been a success there,” Anderton said.

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Contact Ben Bryant at bbryant@vicksburgpost.com