New policy restricting minors from Market Square met with mixed reactions
May 11, 2026
TribLive: “Sasha Machel has watched huge crowds of teenagers in Pittsburgh’s Market Square grow unruly.
In the past few weeks, she’s heard a teenager scream that he had a gun, watched young kids wander the square with no supervision and felt uneasy as dozens of young people have sought to ’cause chaos’ outside Medi’s on Market, the Mediterranean restaurant she owns there.
‘It’s just the wild, wild west,’ Machel told TribLive Thursday, sitting at a table outside her restaurant, looking out at the square as a smattering of people strolled by with coffees and chatted at outdoor dining spaces.
She’s in favor of a new, temporary policy that mandates anyone 18 or younger be accompanied by someone over the age of 21 to enter Market Square between 3 p.m. and midnight from Thursday to Sunday.
The rule went into effect last weekend. Cool, rainy weather largely deterred people from mingling in Market Square then anyway, Machel pointed out….
‘This policy is discriminatory,’ said Tanisha Long, a Crafton Heights resident and organizer for the Abolitionist Law Center. ‘This policy is disturbing.’”