The Kids Are All Right Downtown La Grange—Or Are They?

Unruly kids make a number of appearances each week in the shift reports I browse to write the La Grange police blotter.

Hanging out in the parking garage. Playing music in the parking garage. Smoking in the parking garage.

(You could replace “in the parking garage” with “outside Starbucks” or “in an alley” and get the same effect. Your choice.)

Kids like to hang out in downtown. Who wouldn’t? The lively strip of La Grange Road is one of the reasons I chose to move to the village, though not with the intention of hanging out, playing music or smoking in the parking garage, as fun as that all sounds for a 32-year-old woman.

I had a lovely time last Friday night dining at Wild Monk, strolling in the cool evening air and enjoying the fact that so many other people had the same idea. How wonderful that downtown La Grange is a place people gather.

The La Grange Police Department enforces several rules downtown to keep things under control. Sometimes kids leap far over the line, as one 16-year-old did last summer when he broke the fountain. Others just dip a toe into the trouble zone by obliviously blocking the sidewalk while chattering with their friends. But here’s how things are supposed to work:

• No skateboarding, rollerblading or cycling on the sidewalks. You’ll just have to take the sweet wheel-enabled tricks elsewhere. I see you heading toward the parking garage. Not so fast. That’s off limits to skateboarders, too. You’re not going to fool anyone if the “no skateboarding” signs go missing, either. The rule applies whether the signs are visible or not.
• Swearing, yelling and blocking the sidewalks are not cute. It might make you feel important to hold court with your 15 closest friends around the fountain, doing unflattering impersonations of passers by, but trust me, it makes you look silly. You will realize this in a few years and be embarrassed. Before that realization, you could also wind up with a ticket for disorderly conduct.
• Hang out with a purpose. It’s perfectly fine to sit on a bench while you finish your frozen yogurt. This might even take awhile when you go on a cultured dessert crawl after the roughly 72 fro-yo shops open in La Grange later this summer. But if you’re just standing around keeping other people from delighting in their frozen yogurt, that’s just being a little bit of a jerk. And if you don’t move on after a police officer asks you to? You’re looking at a ticket for loitering.

I love that La Grange is a safe enough place that kids can hang out so leisurely. And personally, I’ve never had a huge problem with the groups.

But I know it’s something that annoys other people, so I’m asking you to play king of La Grange for a moment:

What do you think about all the kids hanging out downtown? Do you think it’s an issue that needs to be addressed beyond what’s already being done? If so, what would you do? Tell me in the comments!