AIBU to feel uneasy about teens congregating outside shops?

So PP suggest that teens don’t want to do what people approve of? So start smiling , say hello you alright every time you go past them

A group of teens does not stop me going into a shop, majority of the time they seem to move before I even have to excuse me and apologies for being in the way.
Most of these teens are good kids.

The people from various charity’s who camp outside shops are the ones who stop me going in!

The problem is that a lot of teenagers are hard-wired to automatically reject what they 'should' do.

The very fact that there's a specific place or facility that's been designed and intended for them instantly makes it deeply uncool and to be avoided at all costs.

Our council went to great lengths to set up a specific teen-friendly 'hang out' place in the town centre... but the teens totally ignored it in favour of hanging around the kiddies' play park - just sitting on the swings staring at their phones and congregating around the edge of the trampoline - so the little ones couldn't get anywhere close to properly use the equipment; or lurking in the multi-storey car park, throwing things (often big heavy stuff) off the top level.

Blimey!

We used to ask the pet shop owner to go to the offie next door for us, and he did! In retrospect, he was a pervert (lots of info came to light later on) and probably hoping to groom one of us 🤢

Oh my word!!!

I remember eating cereal everyday just to make sure I could get my next spoky dokey!!!!

Just imagine how many more peacocks there would be in the world if they had ready access to spokey-dokeys

It's not always easy to know which of the two camps the groups fall into: whether they're just bored, hanging out and minding their own business; or if they're actively looking for trouble and are wanting to threaten or intimidate passers-by.

Actually on the green opposite the local shops they built a shelter bench there literally for the teens to congregate

I’m sure this display is irresistible…bless them.

I don’t love it but normally a loud, assertive “Excuse me, please” with a confident smile (not an apologetic one) does the trick. And keep walking - they’ll part like the Red Sea for Moses.

Well there were youth clubs but still kids hung outside shops. I don't see the issue tbh . If there's a group outside and I want to go in I say " excuse me lass" and they let me ask.

I suppose the wheelies are like a male bird displaying its plumage to attract the females

This was you OP.

Now your saying it’s like others describing with teens riding wheelies down the road on the wrong side and verbally abusing people and damaging their property.

So which is it?

Because he first one as you described is what we are responding to and I’m in the YABU camp.

However the second one isn’t ok and needs reporting to the police as it’s criminal behaviour and if you’d asked if you were Abu to be intimidated by this behaviour I’d have answered YANBU.

Where I live, the girls vape, the boys smoke weed and do wheelies in the bus station to impress the girls.

It's part of why I use Amazon so much.

To be honest, I find the persistent charity stalls right at the entrance or exit of the shop just as irritating. At least the kids don't try to stop you and guilt you into giving them money. @ParsleySageToiletDuckAndBinBags

The charity stalls outside of shops are very irritating! I have been hassled by them much more than I have ever been by a group of bored teenagers.

Just ignore them. They are not interested in you.

It's not always possible for them to hang out at a friend's house so this is just somewhere to go and idle away their time.

Are they rude to you? Are they doing something dodgy like selling drugs? If their crime is just congregating outside a shop, then ignore. There should be more youth clubs and community centres.

Where would you like them to congregate?

We had people locally complaining about them meeting in the toddlers play area until it was pointed out those were the only benches.

They can’t meet in pubs and don’t have the money for cafes. Ask your council to put some benches beside a skateboard park or on the local rec, and they’ll move there.

Make provision for them. They have as much right to exist as anyone else.

I hate it too but it’s hardly anything new, they did it when I was a teen and I hated it then too. Find it intimidating. I avoid running in the evening because of this too, they always feel the need to say something to me or occasionally run after me and find it hilarious.

You think it’s better for 12 year olds to be deliberately doing wheelies towards cars then calling the drivers fucking cunts and banging on their cars while preventing them from driving better than being on a screen? I have to disagree. Besides it’s not one or the other. I didn’t have screens growing up. Except a TV and a sega mastersystem when I was 12. I managed to not intimidate the public while riding my bike with friends or stay in the house 24 hours a day.

I hate this kind of behaviour and I'm not surprised you find it intimidating - I do too.

The PPs jumping on you have possibly never come across this kind of crowd.

To be honest, I find the persistent charity stalls right at the entrance or exit of the shop just as irritating. At least the kids don't try to stop you and guilt you into giving them money.

Didn't they use to have that Mosquito system, whereby they used to play annoying sounds near the shop doorways that only people under a certain age could hear? Probably very unethical; but I did hear of some places that just play loud classical music, which has a similar effect on making the young hoodlums disperse!

I guess it can't be much fun being their age with nothing else to do but hang around in big groups. If they could actually do something - kick a ball around, play games or whatever, it wouldn't be nearly as menacing; but teenagers playing top trumps or British Bulldog is probably deeply saaaaaaaad nowadays.

Do we need to go back to the near-ultrasound devices to repel them, which I can hear, even though I’m supposed to be too old to do so? These were fashionable for a while.

Let us not forget that teenagers were demonised in 2020 for simply existing: they were “vectors of transmission”, had many things in their lives destroyed by Saint Boris and his merry men, and some of them are still feeling the effects.

Yes, teenagers can appear intimidating when in large groups, especially if they are messing about, blocking entrances to shops, and riding bikes all over the road. But on balance, I think it’s better if they’re out and about, instead of their lives being screens and nothing else.

I find most teens are polite if you talk directly to them. In your case, if they are blocking the door or walkway, and are rude if you ask them to move, then talk to the manager of the shop. They are impeding access to his place of business, so it is his concern.