by Peter Gauvin
With the hour well beyond many people's bedtime Monday, the Palo Alto City Council postponed adoption of a curfew ordinance that would require people under 18 to stay off the streets after 10 p.m. on weekdays and midnight on weekends.
The nearly 25 people who spoke at the meeting basically split into two camps: Teens and a few adults who said the vast majority of kids under 18 should not be docked for the misdeeds of a few, and a number of residents from Addison Avenue and elsewhere who said the police need the ordinance as a "tool" to combat gang activity.
An effort to pass the ordinance on a six-month trial basis so it could go into effect later this summer--when the most problems occur with youths loitering, Assistant Police Chief Lynne Johnson said--fell one vote short of the five necessary for approval. The outcome may have been different had not two Council members--Gary Fazzino and Jean McCown--been absent.
Vice Mayor Joe Simitian led the opposition against immediate passage. "It is essentially an ordinance that criminalizes kids for hanging out," he said, adding that the ordinance contains "too much ambiguity" about what is an allowable place for a teenager to be after hours.
Furthermore, Simitian said, there has been little or no discussion on the issue by youth, parent and teacher groups that would be directly affected by the ordinance. And, he said, the three or four days notice the item received was too short to get other interested parties involved.
On the second attempt, Simitian's motion was approved unanimously. It will involve discussions by the Human Relations Commission, former members of the Youth Advisory Council, and the PTA, and return to the Council by July 18. The city attorney will also report on how the ordinance would affect gang activity.
Palo Alto has had a curfew law since 1953, but it has rarely been enforced because of questions about its constitutionality, said City Attorney Ariel Calonne. But the legality of curfew laws was buoyed last month when the Supreme Court refused to hear a challenge to a Dallas law, which Palo Alto's new proposal is based on. A similar curfew was adopted last weekend in San Jose.
Under the proposal, violators would be arrested, cited and released to a parent or guardian for loitering in public areas. Parents also could be cited for allowing their children to be out after curfew. Exceptions would be made for teens going to businesses where there are proprietors, such as movie theaters and restaurants.
City Manager June Fleming said the ordinance would "give police officers much clearer direction on what they can detain minors for while protecting the rights of youth."
While statistics don't show much of an increase in the number of minors detained for offenses, Assistant Police Chief Johnson said the severity of incidents has increased. "In my experience on the police department I don't recall any incidents as severe as the shooting at the party (on Channing Street last month)."
Leora Hanser, a high school senior and member of last year's Youth Council, said teenagers are scared by gang violence too, but a adopting a blanket ordinance, especially without more discussion, would be hasty and unwise.
Council member Ron Andersen, a teacher at Palo Alto High School, supported
immediate adoption of the ordinance with a six-month sunset clause. He said he
recognizes the rights of youth to be respected as adults and that he would
probably hear about it later from his students, "but I have enough confidence in
our law enforcement that this ordinance will not be misused."1