Roy Moore was reportedly banned from Alabama mall for bothering teen girls

Roy Moore.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

On a weekend trip to Roy Moore's hometown of Gadsden, Alabama, The New Yorker's Charles Bethea spoke with and messaged more than a dozen local residents who said they've heard over the years that Moore, the Republican Senate nominee, was banned from the mall because he pestered teenage girls.

Two women who spoke to The Washington Post last week, detailing how Moore tried to pursue relationships with them when they were teens, said they first met him at the Gadsden Mall, which opened in 1974. Moore was a regular visitor there in the late 1970s and early 1980s, several people told Bethea, and many employees remembered he would show up, usually by himself, wearing nice clothes. Gary Legat, who worked at a record store at the mall from 1981 to 1985, said it was a place where teens went "to see and be seen." He said he thinks Moore was banned from the mall in 1979, and knows "the ban was in place when I got there."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.