Westminster won?t enforce a curfew because doing so would violate teens? constitutional rights, the city?s police chief says.
Some residents had looked to the curfew as a way to stop vandalism and drug dealing near their homes.
The citywide curfew, on the books as long as anyone around the town can remember, forbids people under 17 to be outside from 10 p.m. until a half-hour before sunrise unless they?re with an adult.
But enforcing the curfew would endanger civil liberties, Police Chief Jeff Spaulding said.
“We?re simply not going to enforce a law that we feel very strongly is not on its face constitutional,” Spaulding said. “There?s tons of problems with it, but I would imagine most people would not want their child challenged by a police officer on the street at 10:30 in the evening.”
Residents living on Pennsylvania Avenue have called for the curfew to be enforced against teenagers outside after 10 p.m. without adult supervision.
The street has a history of violence and drug dealing, and authorities say the December 2005 murder of a man near Little Jay?s convenience store resulted from a dispute over $500 worth of bad cocaine.
Since 2002, when a committee of about 30 people formed to find ways to improve the area, crime has risen and fallen, but lately it has again been getting worse, residents say.
It?s become economical for many to pile up $25 parking tickets by parking illegally on the main drag because when they park on side streets and make way for the street sweeper twice a week, they say, vandals shatter their windshields.
“I live paycheck to paycheck,” said Dennis Blevins, a tow-truck driver who lives in the 100 block. “I don?t have $500 in my back pocket.”
Police have increased patrols in the troubled area near Main Street, and Mayor Thomas Ferguson said officials should not try to enforce the curfew.
“I?m not sure about its enforceability to begin with,” Ferguson said. “But secondly, there are plenty of difficulties. You?ve got kids who are out legitimately to begin with without getting themselves in any kind of trouble.”
