A Brooklyn Target has banned kids under 18 from shopping at the store without adult supervision — just the latest business in the area using drastic measures to curb delinquent behavior.
The Target — located in the Triangle Junction mall on the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Avenue H — recently began posting security guards at its front doors and carding anybody who doesn’t look of age, a store worker told The Post.
“All guests under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult at this Target store,” a sign stationed inside the door reads.
Anybody who doesn’t meet the age requirement and is without an adult is banned, and those who sneak in and get caught are escorted out.
The measure was reportedly put in place to cut down on recent fights and other rowdy behavior among groups of teens who have been loitering in the store and around the mall, said a 25-year-old security guard working the Target’s door Monday.
“It’s just regular. They play around. They come in groups, you know, and a lot of kids — and they’re not really friends,” the guard told The Post.
The teen problem has less to do with shoplifting — a rampant problem for Target and other stores that has grabbed headlines in recent years — and more to do with general delinquent behavior and loitering, he explained.
“We try to make sure everybody doesn’t have a hangout spot after school,” the guard said.
He said that just the other day, he had to intervene in a fight that began on the store’s second floor and eventually spilled down into its basement lobby.
The dispute only heated up when he and colleagues stepped in to throw the rowdy kids out, he said.
“They started cursing at each other. We sent them back down the stairs. One of them threw a punch. Stuff like that,” he said. “I’m assuming it’s the reason why this [age policy] happened in the first place. Because it makes guests uncomfortable.
“We try our best,” he said.
Some customers are fully onboard with the new rules.
“I kind of think it’s a good idea because you can’t predict what these kids are going to do, especially after school,” said 20-year-old Kaela Ramsey, who was shopping at the Target with her three teenage nieces.
“They’re not going to no activities. They aren’t going to no programs or nothing. I see a lot of kids come in here and do a lot of nonsense,” she said. “I’ve seen so many people get jumped. I’ve seen kids get milked — they throw milk on the kids, fighting with milk.”
But her 15-year-old niece, Kayla, called the age restriction “stupid.
“Not every kid comes in here and destroys Target and stuff,” the teen said, explaining she was even thrown out recently with an underage friend who was trying to buy “emergency” medication for her mother.
“I feel like they need to give everybody a fair opportunity to shop,” Kayla said. “I feel like it’s very dumb.”
Customer Festus Adogu, 80, who was in the Starbucks cafe at the Target, said that if the kids “sit down, do their work, alright.
But when they “play and shout, [workers] call police all the time.”
The Target is just down the street from a McDonald’s which last month barred anybody under 20 from entering without a parent — and hired a bounced to work the door and card everyone passing through.
The fast-food location rolled out the drastic measures after enduring more than a year of harassment from groups of kids — upwards of 20 at a time — who would roll in after school to trash the place and snatch food from customers.
The final straw came after one group charged in wearing ski masks and broke a glass door.
Retail crime has been on the decline in the neighborhood in recent years, NYPD data shows, but some businesses still remain a notorious hotspot for bad behavior.
More than 100 911 calls were made from that McDonald’s in each of the past three years, and so far this year, there have been 29.
The Target guard said while he didn’t like that businesses have to card kids, he knows managers have little choice — but that it was a shame well-behaved kids now have to miss out.
“I know when I was in high school, I was interested in getting some fast food after school,” he said.
“I get it, I understand it,” he said of the restrictions. “But the kids who actually took $10 from their mom in the morning time to look forward to get something to eat after school, after a long day. So I feel bad for those kids.”
Target did not respond to a Post request for comment Monday.
