Westbrook is moving to crack down on the city’s young people by revising an outdated curfew and implementing a tough, new anti-graffiti ordinance.
The curfew has not been updated since 1943, and its text includes a provision that the fire department “cause two blasts of the fire alarm to be sounded each night at 9 p.m.,” when minors under 17 are supposed to be in for the night.
As for the graffiti ordinance, the city is looking to South Portland and Sanford, which have such ordinances on the books, for advice.
At a Public Safety Committee meeting Monday night, Police Chief William Baker cited a rising amount of juvenile crime as sturdy grounding for an updated curfew ordinance. There were nearly 30 charges of theft against juveniles from January through May this year. From June through August, nearly 20 charges of theft and one charge of theft of a motor vehicle were reported.
Sixty-seven juveniles were arrested June through August. Twenty-four juveniles were arrested from September through Oct. 11.
Baker said on Tuesday that his goal with the curfew would be to inconvenience the parents of juveniles who violate the ordinance, to the point where they start taking more control of their children. If juveniles were found loitering on the streets after a certain time, police would take them into their custody and require parents to pick them up.
“With 15 kids in a dark alley at 11 at night, inevitably our experience is that nothing good is going to come from that,” Baker said.
Councilor Drew Gattine said he is not entirely sold on the concept of the curfew, but he wants to the city to move forward in looking at what could be written.
Alex Galipeau, a student at Westbrook High School, said such an ordinance would probably be good if it were set at midnight, but would be best for middle-schoolers.
An curfew ordinance in the city of Rockland that Westbrook is looking at calls for juveniles under 14 to be off the streets by 10:30 p.m., and older minors to be off the streets by 11. The curfew in Sanford is set at midnight.
Nick Adriance, Corey Adriance and Ben Dupras, also Westbrook High School students, all thought the curfew was a bad idea.
“I don’t like that,” said Adriance on Tuesday. “We go out and ride (bikes) a lot.”
Westbrook High School students Brenden Walden and Dana Watts were not impressed by the idea.
“We have friends, we have lives,” said Walden.
“After I get out of work (at 9:30) I usually go out with friends,” said Watts.
Both Watts and Walden said they abide by curfews set by their parents.
The students were not so opposed to the graffiti ordinance, however. South Portland Police Officer Jeffrey Caldwell, part of the department’s Selective Enforcement Unit, made a brief presentation to the committee, saying that while there has been a resurgence of some graffiti recently, when the ordinance was first enacted in May there was an immediate decrease.
“It has helped tremendously,” said Caldwell.
The ordinance in South Portland allows officers to summons a minor who is near any private or public property and is in possession of “graffiti implements,” including spray paint, broad-tipped markers, paint sticks, etching equipment and brushes. Additionally, businesses in both South Portland and Sanford are restricted from selling such implements to minors.
Baker said graffiti is a problem in Westbrook, particularly in the downtown area.
“I don’t know anybody who does graffiti,” Walden said. “(The ordinance) is probably good.”
Galipeau also said she thought it would be a good idea.
Dupras said banning broad-tipped markers may be going too far, but he understands the desire to ban minors from having spray paint.
Caldwell said since the ordinance’s implementation, only three people have been summonsed for violations. All three ended with guilty pleas and fines.
The ordinance is an attempt to give officers an extra tool to prevent graffiti. Caldwell said it’s nearly impossible to actually catch someone in the act of creating graffiti.
Councilor John O’Hara said the restriction on selling graffiti implements to minors stops the problem where it starts: at the supplier.
Pen Hallowell, the assistant manager at Sherwin Williams on Main Street, said Monday he’d have no problem enforcing a restriction on who buys spray paints.
“If the city says we have to do it, we’ll do it,” he said, though in the two years he has worked there he has never seen a minor looking for spray paint. He said the ordinance would be a good idea anyway.
Likewise, at Sportsman’s True Value on Central Street, manager Murray Spaulding said he’d support the city. “We don’t want the mess going on. We don’t want any part of that.”
Spaulding said he often sees minors in his store looking for spray paint. He said they are often around 10 years old and say they are using the paint for their bicycles.
Baker said city officials will be looking at the best way to write the ordinance to provide some leeway to allow legitimate uses of certain materials, just as the curfew ordinance would be written to allow minors to legally do things such as get milk for their parents after curfew.
The graffiti ordinance, though not yet written, was voted out of the Public Safety Committee and straight to the Westbrook City Council, where it will go through the usual process of amendments and two public readings. The committee asked that the curfew ordinance be written and brought back to the committee to be reviewed before a vote to take it to council.
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