SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) – The Eastfield Mall, home to 86 shops and crowds of teenagers looking for a place to hang out, is making it harder for younger mall-goers to congregate.

Following the lead of the nearby Holyoke Mall and many shopping centers across the country, managers of the Eastfield Mall will start requiring young shoppers to be accompanied by a parent or guardian. The new rules will take place Sept. 6.

While the Holyoke Mall is restricting anyone under 18 from coming into the mall without an escort on Fridays and Saturdays after 4 p.m., the Eastfield Mall’s policy will apply to anyone younger than 15 and will be in effect every day from 5 p.m. until closing.

Arlene Putnam, general manager of the Eastfield Mall, which is owned by the Clifton, N.J.-based Mountain Development, said the policy wasn’t prompted by a rise in shoplifting or fights among young people.

“We’ve been quite concerned that parents have dropped their kids off and left them on their own for three, four hours at a time,” Putnam said.

“It’s more of a child protection issue.”

Putnam said the Eastfield Mall is the first mall owned by Mountain Development to implement an escort policy.

According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, similar policies are common among the country’s 1,100 malls.

The country’s largest mall, the Mall of America in Minneapolis, enacted the first parental escort rule in 1996.

But some young shoppers say the rule will be bad news for the mall’s shops.

“When they hear the news, I don’t think any (teens) will be coming here anymore,” Jonathan Irizarry, 17, of Springfield, told The Republican of Springfield.

The escort policy announced last month at the Holyoke Mall has attracted opposition from a group that has collected more than 1,000 signatures for an online petition aimed at getting mall managers to drop the policy, which will take place Sept. 9.

The Eastfield Mall closes at 9 p.m. every day of the week except for Sundays, when it shut down at 6 p.m.

AP-ES-08-02-05 1031EDT