Gallery Place in Washington, D.C., has begun using a device that emits a high-pitched, headache-inducing sound to drive away toublemaking teenagers, says the city’s Post. The shopping and entertainment complex said rowdy youngsters were driving off customers. The new $1,000 device, called The Mosquito, is supposed to be most annoying to young ears. It hung outside the Chinatown entrance to the Gallery Place Metro station Tuesday, annoying its intended targets and then some. The young and a few not-so-young could hear its piercing beeping.
“I’m about to leave because it’s annoying,” said Cassie Boiselair, 20, who was visiting from Connecticut to look at colleges. “Couldn’t they think of something different?” Gallery Place has become a popular hangout for teens in recent years and was the site of a brawl last month that spilled into the Metro system and left several passengers injured, ending with the arrests of three teenagers.