"They grab pumpkins, throw them on the ground, they splatter everywhere. They do the same thing with the mini watermelons."

It’s been a family market for over 30 years, and owner Dirk Stump of Stumps Family Market on Voltaire Street (at Worden) in Point Loma, has had to take restrictive measures on students who wish to enter the store.

No entry for students without a parent or guardian.

“They tear up the store, they tag in the store, they huff the whipping cream for the nitrous oxide, they steal, they scare the help, and they scare the customers,” Stump explained to me.

“We did this before, like maybe every four to five years we do it. I’m not going to accept it in my store, some people are, but I’m not going to let that happen. It’s not safe for my people, not safe for the customers, not safe for the kids. We’ve been doing this for about two-three months now and it’s happening less and less, once they find out there is no reason to go here, they don’t come anymore.”

Although the sign has been up for months, one parent was livid her son was denied entry.

“Yeah, she came in and was berating the clerk,” Stump told me. “So much so that other customers were saying ‘don’t talk to her like that’ and she was ‘fuck you.’ It tends to make me think this is where the problem lies, with the parents, not the kids.”

“We called the principal at Dana Middle School. We’ve tried calling the police.”

One of the clerks, Marissa, tells me what she’s seen.

“They jump on the produce and they, let’s say we have our pumpkin patch, they’ll go in there, grab pumpkins, throw them on the ground, they splatter everywhere, they do the same thing with the mini watermelons that we put out there. There are times that there are so many of them coming in we can’t stop them, they go through the aisles using all kinds of bad words, the customers are so uncomfortable with that.”

Damage can be done regardless of the number of unruly teens.

“Sometimes it could be two of them, sometimes it can be 10, it just depends,” Marissa adds. “It’s out of control. They would grab the fruit, throw it at the checkers and hide, they hit one of them in the head, then the police came that time, they got the guy across the street, he had drugs on him but that went on for months. Once there were only two of them, they tagged the shelves with markers in less than two minutes, our security quit, and said 'I give up,' I can’t handle this.”

Both Stump and Marissa believe it's not the high school kids but it’s the middle school kids wreaking havoc.

“We called the principal at Dana Middle School. We’ve tried calling the police,” Marissa tells me. “The last time I called the police because there was a fight in the parking lot, I was on hold for 15 minutes and the fight was over, one of the moms – she was a regular – came in the store and told me she tried to stop it and they started calling her all these terrible names, so she said, ‘I’m just over it’.”

Since most of his customers are elderly and parents with kids and baby strollers, Stump has witnessed first-hand the effect it has on his business.

“We have customers that are elderly, and they come and look, if they see the kids they drive away…so, this is just how we're going to do it right now. Those people that don’t agree with it, they don’t have any skin in the games, you know I gotta look out for my people, my customers, and if they don’t like it, they can buy their own store and do it the way they want to.”