Yarmouth voters will have to decide this fall whether to place restrictions on where registered sex offenders can live.
Town Manager Nat Tupper said in an email that the Yarmouth Town Council voted 7-0 Thursday night to place the sex offender residency restriction ordinance on the November ballot.
Councilors could have chosen to adopt the ordinance at its meeting, but instead opted to send the question to voters.
Under the proposed ordinance, sex offenders would be prohibited from residing in a home that is located inside a 750-foot buffer zone located around each of the town’s four public schools and North Yarmouth Academy. The idea for an ordinance surfaced in October, after the Yarmouth School Department alerted parents that a registered sex offender convicted of possession of child pornography had moved into a residence on Glen Road, close to the town’s three schools.
When town councilors chose not to support a request from some parents, which would have prevented sex offenders whose crimes involved children from moving into homes within the 750 foot radius, citizens gathered about 750 petition signatures to force the issue onto the ballot.
Violating the ordinance would incur a minimum fine of $750 a day.
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