Here, the issue was always: Malls are private property, so they're not public spaces. They have security guards, who can and will move you on if you don't appear to want to partake of any of the consumables--and no public buildings.
Heh! But protection from the elements does sound good! Maybe there should be a rule that one third of Mall space has to be given over to public buildings--run by the local council maybe--a swimming pool, a sports complex, a play area--and yes, make it green--have some inside/outside going on, plants and trees, a rope-filled monkey playground for kids of all ages and their kids--
Being stabbed in the back, literally: it's a classic! Great scene you wrote there! Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude