Three clothing stores and two jewelers operating in Pemberton Square mall closed Tuesday after their leases were canceled.

The stores’ proprietors said they were evicted due to tensions with management that boiled over following a fight with patrons Thursday inside one store.

The manager of the 21-year-old mall did not return phone calls, but a regional official for CBL & Associates, which owns the facility, expressed confidence in local operations.

Mall security officers, who work under contract, were also said to have had some role in the conflict.

&#8220We work very hard. We’re citizens here. We’re tired of it,” said Maher Mehaisin as he taped up boxes of store displays and signs near the bare shelves of A&M Jeweler.

The five businesses were told Monday they had 24 hours to pack up shop. In addition to A&M, closing were Hip Hot, Source Clothing, Suit Station and Gold Station, a kiosk. The stores employed about 12 people, managers said.

Mehaisin and Taha Elqadi, who also co-owned Gold Station with Mehaisin and whose son, Andy Elqadi, owns Source Clothing and Suit Station, struggled with several patrons they said tried to rob the store at gunpoint Thursday night.

The Vicksburg Police Department incident report affirms that four unknown suspects fled the mall through rear doors after what was recorded as a fight with store personnel. The status of the case is still open, but the report said one of the complainants did not want to file charges.

Both the police and records at the E-911 Dispatch Center said the four left in a brown, two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Tuesday, Mehaisin said one of the four showed a gun after demanding to see where &#8220the expensive earrings” were. A fight ensued, with both Mehaisin and Elqadi sustaining injuries. Both men were treated for eye and head bruises.

Security guards, who are not employees of the mall, called police, who arrived after the four youths left the mall.

Mehaisin and Elqadi said the guards berated both of them throughout the ordeal with racial epithets and other obscenities because of their Jordanian heritage.

Brad Elqadi, manager of Source Clothing, said he did not see the fight but said the response from the guards was slow.

&#8220I saw security nonchalantly walking past it,” he said. &#8220I don’t see where these guys (the merchants) should be punished for being attacked.”

All three put the blame squarely on mall management and said an atmosphere of fear and intimidation between shop owners and general manager Renee Williams is to blame for the decision to shut down the stores.

&#8220By doing this, she’s letting the thugs win,” Taha Elqadi said, adding that he and the other managers affected by Tuesday’s closing tried to involve the mall’s owners, based in Chattanooga, Tenn., in hearing their ideas for improving business.

&#8220They never got back with us,” Mehaisin said.

Debbie Millhouse, marketing manager for CBL’s regional office in Dallas, said policies and procedures exist when individual store owners have problems with managers in malls the firm owns.

&#8220Renee does a good job for us. We have very seasoned employees there. It’s a good mall,” Millhouse said.

Williams was out of the office and unavailable, said a person who answered a mall office phone this morning.

Logs from E-911 show police being sent to Pemberton Square 45 times in the past two weeks, mainly for calls termed &#8220disturbances,” usually fights and calls for extra patrol. Thefts and shoplifting made up about half of the other calls.

In the past year, police have responded 435 times for the same variety of calls.

As for the employees who worked for businesses owned by Mehaisin or Elqadi that were closed, it’s an interruption in income for them. One helping Mehaisin move boxes and fixtures out of the store was Mary Grammar, a single mother of two who said she will be job-hunting again soon.

&#8220It angers me that I’m out of a job, but I’m also angry for the people who shop here. What kind of place is this for Vicksburg and Warren County?”.

CBL & Associates owns the Vicksburg mall and nearby Pemberton Plaza, as well as malls in Hattiesburg, Meridian and Southaven. In all, the company owns 79 malls in 27 states, making it the fourth-largest mall owner in the nation.

Anchor tenants in Vicksburg’s only enclosed mall are Dillard’s, Belk, J.C. Penney and Hudson’s. When Pemberton Square opened in 1985, it became the center of local retailing, supplanting Battlefield Village on North Frontage Road, which was torn down in 2005 and is the site of two new car dealerships, a bank and a motorcycle, four-wheeler and personal watercraft store.

Pemberton has undergone expansions and makeovers through the years. Most recently, it was announced that a cinema there would be remodeled.