Sunday evening/afternoon; a quarter after 7pm. I’m parked in the underground portion of the parking structute. The mall does close at 7pm on Sundays. The attached movie theatre does not. The movie ends and I go back into the mall. Most of the gates are fully or partially down. The last shoppers are milling about and heading out. The workers that’ve just finished up closing their shops are leaving. The movie theatre gate remains open because that’s the only way to get to the parking garage without walking around the block outside. As I’m leaving the stairwell into the garage all of the lights go out. :eek: All of them, the only light’s now coming from peoples headlights and the ligth’s over the stairwell doors. Oh, and those red emergency exit signs. I mumble a what the hell comment and the CinnaBun woman next to me says “Oh, they always do this when the mall closes”.
What the hell?! :mad: The moment the mall closes you shut off all the lights in the parking structure. When you still have customers making to their cars, when one of your businesses is still opens (& it’s patrons use the parking structure). When there’s still alot of people who work at the mall there. Not to mention overnight workers (like stocking, cleaning, etc) arriving. Cars driving around the garage. People walking to and from those cars. In darkness. Gee, had I known this I would’ve carried my fucking flashlight with me. Or at least not worn dark blue jeans with a black shirt.
Oh, and the really fun part? There’s a phone back for the Jerry Lewis Telethon set up in the middle of the mall so there’s going to be an event with lot’s of people there the whole damn night. :smack: It wasn’t even dark out yet.
Personally, I’d call A)Mall security B)whoever manages the mall C)Whoever owns the mall D)Who ever maintains the mall (might be under the heading of engineer and E)The local police department. Those lights should be on at least for a reasonable amount of time after the mall closes. Don’t forget, at the very least you’ll still have workers there for a while and some of them might be carrying the cash from the day to drop off at the bank. I would have expected them to be on 24 hours a day.
If you only want to make one call or email, you should call the police department. But if you do email, just CC everyone.
I’m sure there’s just a timer somewhere that needs to be adjusted.
Do they offer any long term parking in the garage? If so, I bet the people who do that would be pissed to find out the lights go out and the cameras thus aren’t working.
I just shout out the word “fabulous”, then my brain analyzes the return echo and I can navigate in the dark just fine.
Gaydar, not just useful for bar night and outing Hollywood actors.
Good points. I’d add E) the non-emergency number of the local emergency services provider. They’ll know what the relevant regulations are and who enforces them (which the cops may not; it’s not their primary concern), and have serious motivation to ensure you get help – they do not want to respond to a personal injury accident in an unlighted mall garage.
Even if keeping the lights on isn’t covered by any laws/regulations/codes (though I suspect there’s a code issue involved*) if the mall doesn’t want to keep the lights on the PD can put a little bit of pressure on them to do so.
*Add “Local Building Inspector” to the list of people to call or email. In fact, that’s the one that’s most likely to get something done since I suspect this may be a code violation.