This rule was too intrusive. It attempted to control the conversation between consenting participants. In this instance, the person suing was a youth pastor who was sharing his faith with three young people who willingly engaged in conversation with him. The mall asked him to leave and had him arrested because of the content of his private speech. That is unconstitutional.
If he had gotten up on a bench and started to preach, disrupting the normal operation of the mall and interfering with commerce, they could have stopped him. If he was attempting to sell Bibles or religious items without permission, they could have stopped him. But to have him arrested for engaging in a private conversation with willing participants just because the conversation was religious in nature goes too far.
Your analogy of someone on your front porch is off base as well. As a general rule, you do not spend millions in advertising asking people to come visit your front porch. A mall does, and in doing so becomes a quasi-public forum or “public accommodation”. This places some limits on their ability to infringe on the rights of their customers.
Not sure how the mall can determine that a non-business-related conversation with strangers is a willing one or not, or how they can determine that people are “strangers”.
If the pastor had asked the young people their names, they could then reasonably state that they were now friends, not strangers, and therefore not violating the policy.
But I think the description given is more of the mall’s violation of the intent of their policy, rather than an indication that the policy itself is wrong, or unconstitutional.
The policy as written prohibits communications of a non-mall nature with strangers; if I strike up a conservation with someone, and they reciprocate, we are no longer strangers. If the mall stuck to the letter of their rule, they wouldn’t go after a man speaking about religion to new friends, but would go after a man harassing people about religion when they have no interest.
So in your example, if the kids were sitting at a table eating food court meals, and the guy sat down and started sharing the gospel of scientology, the mall cop would have a right to go ask him to leave. If the court throws out the rule, there’s nothing the mall can do, and the vegans can sit AT your lunch table and harass you about eating a hamburger.
The concept of “stranger” pretty much implies non-consenting participants, as well as more common “speech-making” in which a person finds a place, and simple starts giving a lecture to whomever wanders by. “Stranger” should never apply to a person once that person consents to a conversation with another person — that is the start of a relationship.