TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — Hey teenagers, want to go to The Mall at Barnes Crossing in Tupelo on Friday or Saturday night? Better bring an adult beginning in March.

    Scores of malls across the country have adopted policies requiring teens to be escorted, and starting March 4, The Mall at Barnes Crossing will join them. Youths 16 and under will have to be escorted by a parent or guardian 21 or older on Fridays and Saturdays from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

    The restrictions are not as strict at some malls with similar programs, which required teens to be accompanied by an adult every day of the week.

    Mall at Barnes Crossing General Manager Jeff Snyder told The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal that the purpose of the program is to encourage family shopping on the weekends, ‘‘not because of any particular incident or event.’’

    Snyder said the mall will show movies and have live entertainment and other family friendly events on weekends and the mall doesn’t want large crowds of unescorted teens.

    ‘‘We just want to curb the number of unescorted teens so families can come here and not have to wade through a bunch of them,’’ Snyder said.

    ‘‘But we’re not trying to keep teens from coming here or going after them, because we know they make up a large percentage of retail shoppers.’’

    The escort policy will not extend to the Cinemark 8 movie theater or to mall stores with exterior entrances.

    Mall security personnel will be stationed at the entrances to monitor who enters. Unescorted visitors under 16 will be asked to leave, but if they need to contact a parent or guardian to pick them up, they’ll be able to go to a ‘‘reunion area’’ where they can be called.

    Parents or guardians can escort up to three under-16 youths, as long as one of them is their child, and they must stay with them the entire time.