Weekends spent cruising the mall may very well be considered the high school equivalent of a national pastime for teens just looking for kicks or a place to see and be seen.

And for the most part, several malls in the Roanoke and New River valleys have been supportive of teens' roaming, resisting a trend that has other shopping centers putting limits on when and where teens can hangout.

"Teens are always going to be a little bit loud, and we just have to deal with those types of behavior on a one-on-one basis," said Louise Dudley, the general manager of Valley View Mall. Most teens know the rules, she said. They are posted on each entrance door, and the mall has had very few incidences of unruly behavior -- at least not enough to warrant implementing a youth escort policy, she said.

The mall's owner, CBL & Associates Properties, has put the policy in effect at some of its other properties, Dudley said, including the Southpark Mall in Colonial Heights, Va.

Southpark's youth escort policy requires visitors younger than 18 to be accompanied by an adult 18 or older after 6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, according to the mall's Web site. Deborah Gibb, a spokeswoman at CBL & Associates, said the policy has been implemented at malls where problems have arisen, but she couldn't say for sure when the company started using it.

Meanwhile, teenagers are free to visit Tanglewood Mall unsupervised. The mall does have a code of conduct, but it is not age specific, said Rebecca Spaid, the mall's marketing manager. The same is true for the New River Valley Mall in Christiansburg, said General Manager Mike Poldiak. "We basically have not had an issue with teens, so our policy is everybody is welcome," Poldiak said.

Other retailers in the region have not been so lucky. In early 2006, a series of brawls broke out among teenagers in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart at Valley View, prompting the Roanoke Police Department to step up patrols of the area. Wal-Mart has since increased its lighting in the parking lot, said Marisa Bluestone, Wal-Mart spokeswoman from the Bentonville, Ark., office, and has always forbidden loitering inside and out. But as for teenage policies, it has none, she said.

Of course, all teens in Roanoke are under curfew anyway, according to city code. The curfew applies to those 16 or younger. It's 11 p.m. on school nights and midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.

Before those hours, unless teens are violating the law or threatening public safety, it is up to each business whether to allow them to congregate on their property.

Dudley said security at Valley View is usually increased on the weekends to deal with more traffic from both young and older shoppers. And any teen caught in an unlawful act such as shoplifting will likely be banned from the mall, and their parents called, she said. But such measures are rarely needed.

Kids, she said, are often just being kids.

"Teenagers like to be seen and heard," she said. "But they're customers, too."