Everybody has a take on the teen takeovers.
They are the latest phenomenon to hit Metro Atlanta — unauthorized gatherings of hundreds of teenagers in spots like the Battery, the Beltline and the Mall of Georgia. The meetups sometimes end in chaos. On Feb. 28, a Beltline takeover turned into 14 arrests and 11 confiscated firearms with multiple felony charges.
Some have blamed “permissive parenting” for the takeovers. Social media has lit up with calls to “lock them up.” Others are pushing for legal crackdowns or added restrictions on where teenagers can go.
But what has caused the teens to “take over?” And what’s the real solution?
It depends on who you ask.
“I guess they’ve got nothing better to do than swarm someplace and wreak havoc,” Gil Deitch said.
Deitch is a lawyer at Deitch & Rogers, where he is a leading advocate on crime victim rights. He has a background in cases at places like Six Flags Over Georgia, representing clients attacked by an unruly crowd.
To lawyers like Deitch, the teen takeovers could justify legal action. Private property like the Battery could add in anti-loitering efforts, stronger police presence or even curfews and age restrictions.
Take Lenox Square Mall, which added a chaperone requirement after 3 p.m. for people under 18 in 2021. It was spurred by “rising violent crime,” including robberies and gun violence. In 2024, Six Flags added the same rule.
“To me, it’s all about location, where these things are happening,” Deitch & Rogers attorney Andy Rogers said.
He explained security or police could have kids “move along” the Beltline if they’re clogging up traffic, or ask why a crowd of young people is gathered at a shopping mall. For more public areas, the lawyers suggested local ordinances — the city of Atlanta already has a midnight curfew for minors on the weekends.
For lawyers, law enforcement and many public officials, the moves are about “public safety.” Deitch said guardrails for teenagers that pass constitutional muster could “keep the rest of the citizens safe.” But some young people are worried it’s a way to remove them from the public sphere entirely.
“We’re blocked out from these spaces because they want to protect the people,” Atlanta Public Schools student Devin Mitchell said. “But I think another caveat of it is you have to protect us as well. When you change that script, security is now keeping us out instead of keeping us safe.”
Devin Mitchell and Haile Irving, two Daniel McLaughlin Therrell High School students in Atlanta, gave a talk in early March at the student-led forum Future. ATL. Now. The pair aimed to reimagine third spaces for young people in Atlanta.
From Mitchell and Irving’s perspective, the teen takeovers are rooted in a desire for third spaces — locations that aren’t home, school or work that can provide a space for recreation. Third spaces can be shopping malls, coffee shops, hair salons, libraries and churches.
But third spaces are dwindling for cash-strapped teenagers. Prices are skyrocketing, malls are on the decline and the internet has become an unofficial and free “third space” for teenagers in need.
Mitchell and Irving worry restrictions will make it worse. Irving pointed out that teenagers used to hang out at malls, a phenomenon so popular that teenagers earned the nickname “mallrats.” Chaperone requirements and security asking why teenagers are shopping there discourages the space from being a hangout area. To Irving, it makes their very presence suspicious.
“Now teens aren’t just young adults, they’re criminals,” Irving said. “It’s scary to go out, especially if you’re a minority or a Black person. Businesses are shutting the doors.”
The pair wants solutions, too. But they want solutions that will create third spaces. After all, they pointed out teenagers have been gathering for decades. Deitch and Rogers even agreed.
“Teenagers are trying to figure out who they are, they’re trying to see where the boundaries are and to see what is appropriate and what’s not appropriate,” Rogers said.
So what changed between the era of mallrats and today?
Deitch pointed to a new societal structure. The internet dominates, young people have social media and parents can track their children at a moment’s notice. But he also pointed to the prominence of weapons, like the 11 firearms confiscated just off the Beltline. Rogers agreed.
“There were kids racing their cars in Gwinnett County in 1979, I can guarantee you, because I saw it,” Rogers said. “But nobody was carrying a pistol in their car.”
He added, “When you bring in really fast cars and substances and firearms, it can rise to a level of potential danger that I think a lot of us did not grow up with.”
Even the teenagers agreed. Irving said gun violence is the key issue, and many of the adults complain that they “have the ability to advocate for stricter gun laws.” But she doesn’t want the problem to be pinned on teenagers as a group.
“We need to find solutions,” Irving said.
Rogers thinks the task falls on adults to find “age-appropriate” activities for teenagers. “We as adults do have the responsibility for knowing what the teens and our communities need, and what they might be missing,” he said.
But the teenagers don’t want to wait for adults to decide. Mitchell said teenagers need to be “part of the solution.” That’s why he and Irving took the issue into their own hands with their Future. ATL. Now. presentation on third spaces. At the event, the pair were awarded a $50,000 grant from Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens’ office to develop their proposal.
The duo said they will use the money to explore potential third spaces, with possible focus groups or gatherings about the topic. Ideally, they would like to create a third space like Pittsburgh Yards or the Gathering Spot for teenagers in the city.
“The project that we’re working on is more than just creating spaces; it’s about reimagining and reconstructing the social infrastructure of Atlanta,” Mitchell said.
But as they reimagine Atlanta’s “social infrastructure,” the pair are working to remind the adults in the room that they were once teenagers, too — and they deserved to gather.
“At the end of the day, teens need a place to go, because before you are MLK Jr. or Andre Dickens, you are a 13 to 18-year-old looking for a place to go to build your interests and invest in yourself,” Irving said.
