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TONY Blair has backed plans by Britain's
biggest shopping centre to ban youths wearing hooded tops
- but Croydon has turned its back on the idea. Reporter
Anna Giokas finds out why.
STANDING around in a group outside the
Whitgift Centre, the group of young people in hoods may
appear intimidating.
At first glance, you can see why Prime
Minister Tony Blair has praised the giant Bluewater complex
in Kent for barring "hoodies" and caps, which
can hide people's faces from CCTV cameras.
But the managers of Croydon's two biggest
shopping centres have insisted they will not be following
suit.
Whitgift Centre manager Rod Wood said:
"Bluewater is in a privileged position. I envy them
being able to do it, but we would never consider it. Bluewater
is out of the town, but being in the town centre would
make something like that just too difficult to implement."
Mr Wood added that although many would
welcome a ban on hoods, it would not solve the problem
of gangs in the town centre.
He said: "There has been a problem
with groups like this here for years and years. They look
more threatening now, but they are not here because of
the hoods, it is just a fashion."
Centrale is even more determined that
there will be no ban on hoodies, claiming such a move
would be hypocritical.
Manager David Parham said: "I can
understand if you are walking down a street at night and
you saw a large group of people with their hoods up then
you might be intimidated, but there isn't a problem like
that in a shopping centre."
Mr Parham estimated a quarter of the
stores in Centrale stock hooded tops and, admitted any
kind of ban would be two-faced.
He said: "We do not have an issue
with hoodies, the way I see it they are a fashion item."
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