...about talking to strangers.
Owners of a mall in Roseville don’t like strangers speaking to each other, unless it is about commercial enterprises in the mall, and penned rules prohibiting strangers from conversing.
The rules forbid peaceful, consensual, spontaneous conversations between strangers about any topic not commercially related to the Westfield Galleria mall. According to the rules, an application for third party access must be filled out and approved prior to engaging in a conversation.
After a 27-year-old pastor filed a lawsuit against the mall seeking monetary damages for false imprisonment, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, malicious prosecution, and a general violation of his civil rights after he was arrested for speaking to strangers, the Third District Court of Appeals ruled the mall’s policies are unconstitutional.
Matthew Snatchko refused to stop talking with three strangers who had agreed to talk to him about subjects that included his faith.
A security officer ordered Snatchko to stop talking to the strangers or to take the conversation outside. The security officer made a citizen’s arrest, handcuffed the youth pastor and turned him over to Roseville police.
Mr Snatchko was not harassing anyone, the strangers agreed to talk to him. Even a California court couldn't back this rule.
2 comments:
Wow. I hope there's more than one mall in that town so the people who live there can "vote with their feet."
I wouldn't shop anywhere that had that kind of jerky, micromanaging owner.And I'd let all my friends know why I wouldn't shop there.
Our mall has a no guns policy. I won't shop there because I don't go anywhere unarmed.
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