San Diego Approves Modified Curfew for Teenagers

SAN DIEGO â€”  The City Council, stung by a federal court ruling last week striking down its tough curfew law, passed a less restrictive emergency ordinance Wednesday that still ensures that police can arrest teenagers found in public after 10 p.m.

The legal fight between San Diego and the ACLU over its curfew law has been closely monitored by the dozens of other cities with curfew laws, but it remains unclear whether the council’s unanimous action will end the fight or merely lead to another round.

Mayor Susan Golding, backed by Police Chief Jerry Sanders, called the city’s old curfew law “one of the most valuable crime-fighting tools our Police Department� had.

Golding said an emergency ordinance, which becomes effective immediately, was needed both because summer is upon this beach and tourist city and because some San Diego radio disc jockeys had had been telling young listeners that it was now permissible to party all night.

“We have literally saved lives with this ordinance,� Golding said. “Yes, it is a shame that kids who would not cause a problem have to obey. But you know what? Adults have laws they have to obey, too.�

In hopes of passing constitutional muster, the council made the new ordinance more explicit. It also contains a broader definition of activities that teenagers under 18 can attend after 10 p.m. without being arrested.

The new ordinance is modeled after the Dallas ordinance that was upheld by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 1992. The U.S. Supreme Court, also in 1992, refused to hear an appeal of the Dallas decision--emboldening many cities to adopt curfew ordinances or, as in San Diego’s case, to begin enforcing ordinances already on the books.

Last week, the 5th District Court of Appeals rejected the San Diego ordinance as too vague, too restrictive and too intrusive on parental rights. The San Diego law had been much tougher than curfews in place in most Southern California cities.

The rejection was not unexpected. The council was warned three years ago that unless the city’s 1947 teenage curfew law was amended to conform to the more liberal Dallas ordinance, it might be unable to withstand legal challenge.

But council members, unwilling to appear soft on teenage crime, refused to amend the law, which had been rarely enforced until 1994. As soon as it was enforced vigorously, the ACLU filed a lawsuit, resulting in last week’s ruling.

As the ACLU case wound its way to the appeals court, more than 100 cities with curfew laws urged the court to uphold San Diego’s curfew law. Many of those cities had already adopted the kind of language and exceptions found in the Dallas ordinance that the San Diego council had rejected.

Jan Scanlon, a deputy city attorney for the city of Bakersfield who organized a coalition of municipal attorneys in support of San Diego, said many cities are reviewing their curfew ordinances to see if they are more akin to the court-approved Dallas ordinance or to San Diego’s ill-fated 1947 ordinance.

“I expect some people will be repealing their ordinances, some will be enacting new ordinances, and some will be sitting tight to see what happens,� Scanlon said.

ACLU attorneys Wednesday said they hadn’t decided whether to begin new legal action aimed at San Diego’s emergency ordinance. In rejecting the city’s ordinance last week, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said it would look favorably on a less restrictive one.

Linda Hills, executive director of the ACLU in San Diego County, said lawyers will examine the emergency ordinance “to see if it protects the constitutional rights that parents and minors are entitled to.�

The 1947 ordinance made it unlawful for minors to “loiter, idle, wander, stroll or play� in public after 10 p.m. The court found this to be overly vague. The emergency ordinance makes it unlawful “to be present� either on public property or at “an establishment.�

Terra Lawson-Remer, 18, one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit, said that regardless of what happens to the new ordinance, the court’s decision is a “profound victory for the ACLU and for minors and parents all over the western United States.�

The old ordinance said persons under 18 years old could be out in public after 10 p.m. only if they were with a parent or guardian, on an emergency errand, returning home from a school-sanctioned event or going home from a job.

The court found these exceptions too narrow and an intrusion on the rights of parents. Teenagers had complained that they could face arrest for attending a poetry reading, a political event or even midnight Mass.

In a direct imitation of the Dallas law, San Diego’s emergency law adds a catch-all exception for any teenager involved in exercising his or her 1st Amendment rights. What constitutes exercising one’s 1st Amendment rights will be decided on a case-by-case basis, said City Atty. Casey Gwinn, who drafted the emergency ordinance.