Mayfair Loosens Up

The parental supervision policy at Mayfair may have helped control violence at the mall, but at what price?

Is the policy responsible for sending shoppers to the competition?

Wauwatosa -- Mayfair Mall, facing reduced sales, has decided to extend its hours on Saturdays and ease restrictions slightly on unescorted teens.

Starting this weekend, the Wauwatosa mall will stay open until 9 p.m. on Saturdays. And unescorted children under 18 may stay at the mall until 3 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, one hour later than previously enforced.

The changes come after Mayfair's sales turned downward for the first time since 2001, Mayfair marketing manager Nancy Conley said.

"It's a slight decrease," she said, adding that the downturn occurred in May and June.

Adding to Mayfair's challenges are poor sales at Macy's, one of its anchor department stores, and stiffer retail competition in the Milwaukee area.

Since March 30, the retail center has required children under 18 to be escorted by adults after 2 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The restrictions, called Parental Guidance Required, were put in place after episodes, a few of them violent, that required police intervention.

This weekend's rule changes also relax the requirements for parental escorts. Under the original rules, an adult over 21 could escort only four children under 18. This caused problems for parents taking larger groups of children to movies and birthday parties at places such as Build-a-Bear Workshop and Club Libby Lu.

New rules will allow one adult to supervise any number of children ages 10 and younger during curfew periods. The limit of four youths per adult still applies to children from age 11 to 17 during curfew times.

"We always said it was going to be a fluid program," Conley said.

That's true. Mayfair officials always said that they would make adjustments to the program.

No one wanted Mayfair to go the way of Northridge Mall, so they put the policy in place.

That was the right thing to do.

Macy's poor performance can't be blamed on the parental escort policy.

..."Macy's has not been received well in the marketplace," Conley said.

The retailer has struggled nationally, reporting Wednesday that its second-quarter earnings fell 77% and sales were down 2%. The company also lowered its outlook for the third quarter, citing its own negative trends and concern about the economy.

"The buyers didn't buy appropriately for the Midwest," Conley said of the situation at Mayfair. The company has addressed the issue, and Macy's is hoping to improve sales with the introduction of fall merchandise, she said.

Oooh. Fall merchandise. How novel!

What is this? "The buyers didn't buy appropriately for the Midwest."

What's that supposed to mean? It sounds like a cut on the people of flyover country.

Now, the buyers have learned what sort of merchandise appeals to Midwestern hicks.

Sure.

In Chicago, some shoppers have boycotted the Macy's store to protest the name change of the landmark Marshall Field's on State St.

I think Marshall Field's customers were a loyal bunch, both at the Chicago State St. store and at Mayfair.

You can't just plop another store in there and expect things to be the same.

Since the weekend supervision policies began in March, they have made an impact, said teens who were at Mayfair on Thursday.

Ciara Camberos, 16, works weekend shifts at Cinnabon in the mall. She said she's noticed a thinner crowd in recent months on Friday and Saturday afternoons. And since the parental guidance policy went into effect, Camberos has opted to shop at Bayshore and Brookfield Square during her weekend off hours.

"They lost a lot of money from me," the Whitefish Bay High School student said.

Michael Czerwinski, 13, of Menomonee Falls said that the one time he tried to venture into the mall alone during restricted hours, Mayfair security stopped him. Czerwinski had to call his parents to retrieve him, he said.

Since then, he and his friends have shopped elsewhere on weekend afternoons, he said.

"We've been going to Brookfield Square," Czerwinski said.

The addition of an hour to the time youths under 18 can shop unsupervised won't affect his habits much, he said.

Of course, the policy had an impact on kids at the mall. That was the idea.

If there is a mass exodus of kids leaving Mayfair and going to Brookfield Square, then some of the trouble that plagued Mayfair should be sprouting up there. Is that the case?

I find the anecdotal evidence presented in the article to be a waste. Do the shopping patterns of a couple of teens reflect the larger population?

It's hard to believe that 13-year-old Michael Czerwinski and his friends did a lot of spending at Mayfair.

It would be interesting to see Brookfield's sales numbers. If what Czerwinski says is true, and if other teens have done the same and bailed on Mayfair, then Brookfield and other shopping areas should be seeing a jump in sales.

No matter what, I think that it was wise in the long run for Mayfair to enact the escort policy.

A slight drop in sales is far better than allowing the entire Mall to go under the way Northridge did.