Teenagers hanging out at the mall is a time-honored tradition. But one New Jersey shopping center says unaccompanied teens are causing trouble. 

Come Friday, the Westfield Garden State Plaza mall in Paramus will bar visitors 17 and younger from its halls on weekend evenings if they don't have chaperones.

History shows Garden State Plaza is far from the first mall to do this. The number of malls with similar policies has jumped in the last decades.

Morning Edition producer Verónica Del Valle joined WNYC's Michael Hill to talk about the effort to curb rowdy behavior at the mall.