COACH at South Coast Plaza delivers exactly what you’d expect: polished design, premium leather, and a timeless aesthetic that balances tradition with trend. The storefront is modern, the interior well-lit and inviting—everything about it says elevated shopping experience.
But step just outside that luxury bubble, and...
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COACH at South Coast Plaza delivers exactly what you’d expect: polished design, premium leather, and a timeless aesthetic that balances tradition with trend. The storefront is modern, the interior well-lit and inviting—everything about it says elevated shopping experience.
But step just outside that luxury bubble, and you’ll encounter a much less refined reality—one that involves mall security, police, and a serious misuse of public infrastructure.
The Shell Recharge EV stations near this part of the mall are clearly marked as free and available 24/7. There are no signs restricting usage. So I plugged in to charge while shopping. Within minutes, mall security showed up. Then came the police. My license plate was run, my information taken, and I was warned I could be cited for trespassing—for simply using a charger that’s supposed to be public.
Meanwhile, mall employees are allowed to charge overnight and well into the morning, tying up the chargers while the public is quietly pushed out. There’s no transparency, no signage—just selective enforcement depending on who you are.
What makes this worse is that these chargers are funded by California taxpayers. They were installed as part of public clean energy initiatives to ensure equal access to EV infrastructure. But South Coast Plaza is enabling a system where public resources are silently converted into employee-only perks, with law enforcement used to keep everyone else away.
COACH may help you carry something timeless, but charge your car nearby and you might end up carrying a trespass citation instead.
This review will be removed once the chargers are treated like public infrastructure again—open, fair, and free from intimidation.