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.”
Source: rt.com
Photo: Reuters / Mohamad Torokman
About time
hard labor
I too do not like this type of dress. However, IT is Their ‘right” to do so.
What Moron called this Racist? Your an idiot!!! White boys do it, Chinos do it too. Mexicans do it as well… This has nothing to do with race until an idiot makes it about race. Ask Daymond John or Bill Cosby about it and they are saying the same.
The commonality between all people that wear there clothes like this is their flagrant disrespect for rules and laws. It is sad that this has to become a law. The common decency rule of acceptable behavior SHOULD nip this… but it doesn’t.
#PullThemUp
Work the hell out of them while in jail
Bout time
Finally; I’m on the legal side of the thought police. Not sure I like it. Yes, the pants look stupid but the wearer seems not to think so. Why is it offensive enough for jail time? There’s no law yet that says I have to hire folks who look stupid and have this dress code. [is it discrimination yet if I refuse to hire someone in a burka in Dearborn?]
So how much does it cost to take pictures and arrest and detain someone who shows their rear in this manner? For kicks, let’s say $15,000 per incident. How many of these baboon-imitating folk do you think would be arrested in 6 months–in a year? Or how many can your jails accommodate? For kicks let’s say 1000 (yes we know that’s quite low) = $15,000,000 to hand out.
Can’t you act opposite shaira police and give everyone who’s wearing their pants modestly $10 or $20? If beat cops still exist, they know who repeaters are. Maybe it’ll foment an entire movement of females walking past a cop with pants down and asking for $20 to pull ’em up. Or to avoid more state corruption by letting police hand out cash, give lot’s of folks chits to hand out to be exchanged for cash at some public office…the library. Florida’s conceal carry so the librarians wouldn’t be more prone to robbery. Or let financial institutions hand out the cash; it’ll create an entire new industry and some walk-thru’ lanes at the drive-thru’.
Not the best tho’t out idea. But why can’t we give carrots instead of using sticks when people act like idiots?
Lol! In the words of Forrest bump, stupid is as stupid does! Oh, and isn’t it pathetic that the one guy here who probably plays buttcrack bingo wants to make everyone else mind their own business. Act like a man, punk! You want to show the world, show the world what you look like in a military uniform! Not the crack of your ass! Pathetic?
Outstanding! Nothing to do with race, it has to do with respect or lack there of. Thank you Florida this is long overdue!
why do they bother to ware pants if this is how they want to ware them, this is so stupid,,,,