Well...I worked in a mall for five years. And it isn't a public place, its private property. The mall can basically create whatever rules they want and reserve the right to enforce them. We were always told that noone was allowed to take pictures of our store (because it could be for competitive purposes, etc), but I'm assuming the mall itself reserves the same right -- and did so.
As far as the assylum goes, that's some BS. You gotta get to the bottom of that.