Last Updated on: 3rd March 2015, 03:27 pm
If you live in Sacramento and are a fan of small talk, don’t go to the Roseville Galleria. While in the mall, you are prohibited from walking up to a stranger and saying anything other than things to do with the mall. Oh wait, you’re not prohibited. You just need to fill out an application four days in advance and mall security will review it. That’s seriously what mall staff think is a good policy.
The Third District Court of Appeal said that was not gonna work, it violated free speech, and the mall management is appealing to the Supreme Court! That’s how much they believe in this policy.
It all started when someone was walking up to people talking to them about religion. As annoying as that is, the mall’s response of banning speech of any kind except for stuff to do with the mall, is a little nuts. But the scary thing is that mall staff believed in it enough to defend it.
And what kind of ridiculousness is getting someone to apply to talk to strangers four days in advance? When people talk to people they don’t know, often they don’t plan to. Maybe someone’s sitting with a baby, the baby coos and someone says the kid’s cute. People see me with Trixie, and ask me about her. That would mean the person would have to submit an application to the mall to be able to say, “Aww he’s cute. How old is he?”
Um, erm, eek. I hope the Supreme Court shoots this mall policy down, and perhaps laughs in the faces of its defenders, as much as one can while passing a Supreme Court decision.