Not All Satisfied : Teen Problem Eases at Mall

The chief of police dubbed it an “attractive nuisance”--a magnet for unruly teen-agers who wore outlandish punk rock garb and liked to stir up trouble.

Nearly 70 merchants with shops near the Fun Center video arcade in Carlsbad’s Plaza Camino Real mall called the business worse names, and signed a petition demanding that it be shut down.

Mall patrons, meanwhile, complained that the oddly dressed and bizarrely coiffed punkers--who were known to spit on one another, scuffle in the mall corridors, bathe in the center’s decorative fountain, and panhandle near the controversial arcade--were prompting them to do their shopping elsewhere.

Last fall, mall merchants and other Fun Center critics joined forces and asked the Carlsbad Planning Commission to revoke the arcade’s conditional use permit. Since the arcade opened a year earlier, they argued, the number of mall “incidents”--complaints from customers and calls for security guards--had risen 900%. Life at the mall had become intolerable, they said; the Fun Center had to go.

Planning commissioners were sympathetic, voting to revoke the permit. The City Council in November overruled the commission’s action, but the arcade was closed temporarily during the mall’s Christmas shopping season and then placed on “probation” for 120 days.

Council members also imposed a strict set of conditions upon the Fun Center--including beefed-up security--and agreed to review the arcade’s performance at the end of the probation period.

By all indications, the Fun Center has passed the test.

These days, it is a peaceful place patrolled by friendly but firm security guards. The only battles under way in and near the Fun Center are imaginary ones--played out on the numerous video games that line the arcade’s walls.

Mall officials won’t comment on the matter. But Police Chief Vince Jimno, formerly an arcade critic, said “things have improved considerably,” and several merchants once determined to drive the Fun Center out of the mall said that additional security and other measures have made a substantial impact on the problem.

“Although we did record 12 incidents that were applicable to the arcade, none were very serious and we only had one arrest,” Jimno said. “We still see the punker clientele in the mall, but it has dissipated and no longer clusters around the arcade. In short, we think we’ve made great progress.”

Controversy over the Fun Center erupted last summer, when hordes of youths sought relief from the unusual heat in the mall’s air-conditioned corridors. Merchants began complaining that the so-called punkers were disrupting mall life and intimidating shoppers.

Police officers who patrol the mall observed the youths littering, begging for coins and roughhousing near the arcade, which quickly was singled out as responsible for luring the youngsters to the center.

But officials at the F.W. Woolworth Co., which manages the arcade, contended they were being unfairly blamed for the punkers’ presence in the mall. The attention-seeking youths gather in the mall because it is centrally located and a good place to socialize, they argued, not because it houses a video arcade. Further, a survey of arcade patrons showed only 6% were of the punker persuasion; 75% were off-duty Marines.

Nonetheless, Woolworth’s offered to hire additional security guards at the arcade, cut back its hours of operation and take other measures to show their desire to be a cooperative tenant. Those measures appear to have been effective.

Some merchants, however, say the punker-related problems persist in the mall and steadfastly maintain the arcade is to blame.

“Things are better, but our customers are still upset and frightened by the way those punkers dress,” said Rosemarie Bell, president of the mall’s merchant association. “I think the video arcade is responsible and I don’t think we should have to put up with it in the mall.”

Chief Jimno and merchants agree the true test of the arcade will come during summer, when idle youths traditionally flock to the mall to stroll the corridors and socialize.

“Summer’s going to be wild, just wild,” said Bell, manager of Motherhood Maternity. “I’m sure the punkers will be here in force. We’re all getting set for a real doozy.”