Tired of seeing teens walk around with their pants so low it shows all their underwear? (how do they do that anyway?)
Ocala, FL certainly is. So much so that they have passed an ordinance stating that anyone who wears their pants 2 inches below their ‘natural waist line’ will get a warning or two (complete with pictures), and if they continually violate the law could receive a $500 fine and 6 months in jail.
Plummers beware! This law applies to anyone showing too much of their…backside.
Officials in Ocala, Fla. agree with Platt’s sentiment so much that city council unanimously passed an ordinance that prohibits anyone on city property from wearing pants two inches or more below a person’s natural waist.
“I just think it’s disgraceful to show your underwear,” Councilwoman Mary Rich said to WFTV. “We try to be a nice, clean city. I think it’ll help clean it up some.”
Rich previously tried to pass the rule in 2009, but no one seconded the motion. At the time, Mayor Kent Guinn objected to the ordinance, in part because he thought it would lead to profiling.
Rich said the ordinance applies to both genders and all races.
“It doesn’t matter what color they are,” Rich said, according to the Washington Post blog GovBeat. “They all wear their pants down.”
Guinn, who oversees the Ocala Police Department as part of his mayoral duties, asked Rich at the council meeting how officers were supposed to measure the distance between a suspect’s natural waist and the waistband of the pants. He said it is not like seat belts, which are either being worn or not, the Ocala Star-Banner reported.
“We are not looking to charge people,” City Attorney Patrick Gilligan said. “If they don’t comply, I think the chief will tell police officers to take your phone out and take a picture.”
The sagging pants ordinance is enforceable on city-owned or leased property, including sidewalks, streets, parks, sports, recreation and public transportation facilities and parking lots.
When asked about a service worker, say a plumber, whose buttcrack might show, “He will get a warning like everybody else,” Gilligan said, according to the Star-Banner.
Police are expected to issue warnings to saggy-pantsed offenders at first. After that, those caught with their pants down face a $500 fine or jail time, WFTV reported.
MTV’s Rob Markman condemned the ordinance. “Still, it isn’t the rap stars getting into hot water that’s the most troublesome, it’s the thought that a local government can dictate how young people dress,” the MTV News hip-hop beat writer penned. “First it’s saggy jeans, next it’s the way you tie your shoe laces (sic) or the way you wear your hat.”
Teacher Howard Gunn said he was concerned about enforcement. “Most of these kids you are dealing with are ones that have probably been in jail or are going to jail,” Gunn told the Ocala council. “A lot of times they are going through things. And we slap this on them, they are going to go further.”
“The kids are going to say something to you because they don’t know the law,” Gunn said about the police. “And then, there you go. Escalation. Now you have an assault on a police officer.”
Over the years, lawmakers around the country have proposed and passed laws to try to crack down on the sagging pants trend. In Fort Worth, Texas, you can’t sag and ride the city bus. In Opaocka, Fla., refusing to tighten your trousers will cost you $250. In Colinsville, Illinois, wearing saggy pants on any public property is banned. And in New York, State Senator Eric Adams used his own money to put up billboards that read, “Stop the Sag.”
I think it’s funny to watch em trying to flee the police on “Cops” with their pants like that… Don’t usually get very far lol
A good hard boot in the ass ought to be the first thing they get.
Its about time
Kelly Foreman, I live in ocala. Unfortunately there were complaints about the law, leave that up to your imagination, and the NAACP got involved. Imagine that. The spineless town councilman of ocala backed down to the bulldogs of that association and repealed the law. So you are now free to wear your saggy pants again. Stupid.
Need to do that in the Ville.
Holy craap
It’s just too lenient. The law needs to ruin their lives forever. Make them pay $1000.00 a month for the rest of their lives. Register them as violent child sex offenders. Take away their right to vote. Disconnect their air conditioner. Give them nude public whippings and other humiliations. Get out the stocks. Cut off their testicals. Remove their ovaries. They can’t be allowed to breed. Keep them out of the gene pool.
Their crime is so offensive to the good Christian white people that it just can’t be tolerated! No punishment is too strict for them!
And if they do it twice, torture them to death slowly, and in public, to send a clear message to the rest of their vile satanic friends that America, home of the free, land of the brave, will not accept perverted behavior.
First time.. 6 months in Jail… With 300 hours of community service… Second time… 12 months in Jail…. and 600 hours of community service…. That will Make it hard… Break them from a Bad habit….
Law’s been repealed, NAACP bitched
Nice