It is not yet known if the Tweed City shopping centre will be making the ban permanent. We hope it will.

The real concern, however, has nothing to do with people concealing their identities so they can commit crimes.

Our objection is based purely on the grounds of appearance.

Can there be any more ridiculous sight in a regional centre in NSW than groups of young men aping the dress and behaviours of gang and street cultures imported to our shores from black America along with that ubiquitous “doof-doof” music?

The latter appears to be the soundtrack for every second-hand Commodore driver of a certain age and every Subaru WR-X and Nissan Skyline hardtop in Tamworth.

Regional Australia has – or at least used to have – a distinctive culture all its own. We celebrate it every year with the Country Music Festival.

While we aren’t saying moleskins, RMs, button-down pockets, sports jackets, plaited belts and woollen ties are for everyone, they are certainly a vast improvement on the reverse baseball capped or hooded, baggy-shorted and runner-clad Ali G tragics that currently decorate our streets and shopping centres.

The “hoodie”, given the relative mildness of our climate, must be seen as a major aberration.

Is it possible to make yourself look more absurd than by cloaking up like a 13th century monk or an escapee from the flagellation scenes in the Da Vinci Code at the height of a Tamworth summer?

Young people, when quizzed about their predilection for fashion fads from overseas, invariably defend less-than-elegant clothing choices on the basis of individuality and making a statement. The truth of the matter is that it is conformity of the most single-minded kind.

Be yourselves kids. You don’t have to borrow the clothes and the mindset of the American ghetto to find an identity.

• What do you think? Email us on editor.ndl@ruralpress.com