Similar to organisms and ecosystems, malls have a life span as well.

I went to Four Seasons mall earlier this week. I went straight to the security office to ask if I could take pictures of the store fronts and was told no. So I asked why and the guards shrugged their shoulders. Unbelievable...

I believe it is important to point out as a side note for anyone reading this that while one's first reaction is to be upset with the guards, I understand their situation. They don't get payed to disagree with rules or interpret them differently, only to enforce them. This also applies to any form of security such as the police and even FBI. If they didn't enforce the rules and openly voiced their opinions about it, I doubt they would still have a job. That said, I wouldn't want to lose my job over someone who wants to violate the rules I'm hired to enforce.

The guards directed me to the mall management office. I went in and the desks were empty so I rang the cheesy "assistance bell." Two people came out of a side room and I posed the same question to them about photography. They told me it had something to do with an agreement or contract with the stores in the mall. It was not their decision but the individual stores' decisions to not allow photography. On the bright side, the man did say it was well within my rights to draw. So thats what I did.

To sum up Four Seasons...its an older mall. The ceiling and store front heights are much lower then the newer malls. The stores still have free reign over their shop fronts though, enabling them to do almost anything they want within the boundaries of their leased space. Had it not been located so close to I-40, it probably would have shared the same fate as the Carolina Circle mall (first turned into a sportsplex type of place, then demolished for a new super Walmart). I still believe it will end up that way eventually as automobile traffic becomes increasingly more expensive and most businesses relocated to places of mixed use (friendly center and downtown for example). Maybe they could turn the mall into a mixed use miniature urban city? I'd like to see it all knocked down and turned into a park (including Koury Convetion Center, don't they have a special surprise planned for downtown to replace it?).

On Friday (2008-09-05) we went as a class to Northlake mall north of Charlotte. The Anthropologie meeting was amazing but more on that later. Again, we were not allowed to take pictures inside the mall. Some of my peers attempted at sketching and were eventually told that they couldn't even do that by a security guard. I of course went straight to the management office to ask what it was I could do. A woman who answered phones at a desk took my inquiry and called someone, who directed her to someone else, who directed her to someone else, etc. Someone called and she put the person on hold she was talking to for me, to talk to the other person. After that, she asked what it was I wanted to do and who I was again. Somehow all she got was UNC, architecture, and drawing out of that. Thank you for listening to what I'm saying. Apparently "Phil" whos the big shot in charge was out of town and was the only one who would know how to answer that question. Whoever else was there didn't feel comfortable making the decision and probably should never be left in a leadership position ever again. God forbid THEY have to be the one to choose which shoes to put on THEIR feet in the morning.

I took the whole thing as a "we're not sure either way but we don't want to say yes or no." Its a very indirect way of saying no. Fuck you people. I'm no lawyer but I know a little about my rights and I'm pretty sure that those "rules" are in direct violation of my first amendment rights as noted in the constitution of the United States of America.