DANVERS — Jennifer Webster said she couldn't believe her eyes on a recent trip to the Liberty Tree Mall with her 9-year-old daughter.
On her way out of a children's clothing store, near the food court and the movie theater, the pair walked by the Hottees T-shirt kiosk and saw shirts on display with messages about sexual positions and getting women drunk and having sex with them.
Webster said she confronted the kiosk owner, filed a complaint with the mall management, met with someone in the mall's marketing department and even notified police — but the T-shirts came down only briefly. They were back up again a few days later, she said.
"The shirts are sexually explicit and objectify women. ... It really bothers me," said Webster, a Danvers resident. "I just kept thinking, 'This isn't right. It shouldn't be right next to a movie theater with all these kids here.'"
She isn't the only unhappy mall patron. The Danvers Police Department and Town Hall have received a handful of complaints about inappropriate T-shirts on display.
"Everyone is outraged, totally outraged," said Linda Dupont, a Peabody grandmother. "My grandchildren and I go to the mall and the food court, and we should not have to pass this trash. There are places for selling that kind of item."
The kiosk owner and the mall have refused to answer questions on the matter. In response to written questions, the mall issued a three-sentence reply through its public relations agency.
"Simon Property Group works with each and every tenant to ensure that merchandise displayed is in good taste and not blatantly offensive," the statement said. "T-shirts with phrases are popular, and interpretations can be subjective. We monitor the tenants on an on-going basis, and if we find that material on display could be interpreted as offensive, we require them to remove it."
No control?
Webster said that's not what she was told when she met with Ramon Ortiz, the mall's marketing administrative assistant. She was told, she said, that the mall has no control over the content of Hottees' merchandise in the vendor contract.
"He was very nice, but he basically told me that they have no leverage," Webster said. "That's when I started e-mailing and calling all the mommies I know."
The Salem News went to the mall to interview the kiosk owner on a recent afternoon. He wouldn't give his name and said he has run his kiosk for three years without incident. He immediately called security, and two mall security guards escorted the reporter down a long hallway of the mall and asked her to leave. The T-shirts with the explicit sexual messages were not in view.
Julie Chavanne of Regan Communications Group, the firm that represents the mall, said management has no comment. The Liberty Tree Mall's Web site, which can be found through www.simon.com, lists Hottees as selling "Fun and funky T-Shirts with original art and witty one liners."
"I find it obnoxious, and it just should not be there," Dupont said, "particularly because people with little children go to the mall. It's awful. I just want that code of decency in the mall."
In response to citizen complaints, the Danvers police went to the kiosk a few weeks ago and asked the owner to remove the offensive T-shirts, according to Sgt. Robert Bettencourt. He said the police have received about four complaints in the last year about the T-shirts on display, and Danvers Town Hall received two recent complaints, according to the town clerk's office.
But there isn't much police can do either, because items like T-shirts fall under the constitutional protection of free speech in the First Amendment — unlike sexually explicit magazines, which are illegal to sell to persons under 18, according to Salem police Capt. Paul Tucker.
Danvers police Capt. Patrick Ambrose said it's really up to the discretion of the mall to determine the merchandise it will allow. A logo written on a T-shirt and pornographic material "are really two different things," he said.
Webster, who teaches eighth grade in Reading, said she worries about the impact on children viewing sexually suggestive and vulgar phrases on T-shirts at Hottees.
"I know how some kids would react and think it's funny," she said, "but they're not mature enough to understand."
'Wrong location'
The kiosk used to be in the Northshore Mall in Peabody, also near the food court. Simon Malls would not comment on when or why it moved to the Liberty Tree Mall.
Repeated calls and an e-mail to Ronda McLeod, area director of marketing for Liberty Tree, were not returned.
Webster went to the mall on Saturday to talk to the kiosk owner again, and he called the police and told them that Webster was harassing him, according to Bettencourt.
"It hasn't been a positive experience between (the owner of Hottees) and I, but I don't care," Webster said. "Freedom of expression, I'm fine with that. But that should be in the back of a store with an age limit on who should see it."
