By Max Goodwin
At the start of 2024, Ward Parkway announced a curfew policy for those under the age of 18 on weekends. The policy states that after 6 pm on Friday and Saturday, guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian 21 years or older.
This follows a trend that more malls around the country have established over the past decade.
In the 65 years that Ward Parkway has been in business, malls have represented a glimpse of freedom for American teenagers, especially on weekends. But malls are limiting that freedom because of increased issues with unruly teens disrupting the mall experience for others. Shopping centers like Oak Park, Zona Rosa, and Legends Outlets have curfews in place now.
“From my own perspective, as somebody who grew up when that was the hangout, the mall was the safe space. It is kind of sad,” said Dave Claflin, Marketing Director for Ward Parkway Shopping Center. “What we’re doing is saving it for the rest of the patrons.”
The spread of curfew policies reaching Ward Parkway has some historical relevance.
In the early 1960s, Stanley H. Durwood became an entertainment icon in Kansas City. Four decades earlier, his father Edward Dubinsky, and his uncles Maurice and Barney Dubinsky, had bought the Regent Theater in downtown Kansas City and made it one of Kansas City’s early movie houses. The family changed their name to Durwood and created Durwood Theaters. Stanley became CEO of the family business in 1961, and the name was changed to American Multi-Cinema.
As he set out to build a new movie theater inside the mall, a new concept at the time, Stanley found that Ward Parkway’s building structure wouldn’t allow for a traditional movie theater with a large screen and hundreds of seats. Instead, he created two small movie theaters. It has been credited as the first mall-enclosed twin multiplex in the country. It was named the Parkway Twin.
The concept was so successful that before long, the twin multiplex was turned into a four-plex and then a six-plex. “I figured I had about five years before the big guys would overtake me,” Stanley was quoted in an obituary by the New York Times. The multiplex expanded, and Stanley changed the name of the company to AMC Entertainment, which is now the largest cinema chain in the world.
Ever since, Ward Parkway and other malls have been places for teens to hang out, shop, and watch movies.
After the Parkway Twin closed in 1978, AMC operated the movie theaters in Ward Parkway. For the past 15 years, AMC has had a policy that nobody under the age of 18 could buy a ticket without an adult.
“We basically just played off of the AMC policy,” said Lori Cogan, General Manager of Ward Parkway.
There have been incidents of rowdy teens at and around Ward Parkway Shopping Center on weekends over the past year, but Cogan and Claflin say there was no one particular incident that caused the need for the policy.
“We noticed that a lot of the shopping centers throughout the country, especially in Kansas City, have adopted a policy like ours. We thought it would be helpful,” said Claflin.
Security has escorted minors out of the mall a few times, and a few complaints have been made. But the new policy has successfully stopped unruly teens from disrupting the peace on weekend nights, according to Director of Community Engagement for the Kansas City Police Department Kari Thompson.
“Last year there were a couple of events at Ward Parkway where a large number of kids gathered,” Thompson said. “Having a curfew for movies absolutely stopped the high traffic of kids.”
On a recent Friday night, Ward Parkway was mostly quiet as a few people walked around the mall with no teens in sight. The rowdiness that typically comes with teenagers free of parents for the weekend is gone, but so are some traditions that have made the mall what it is in American culture.
It makes sense, but it’s also kind of sad.
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