PINE BLUFF - A Pine Bluff alderman is sponsoring legislation he hopes will hide underwear - on backsides, not sales racks - from public view.
Alderman Charles Boyd’s proposed ordinance was read for the first time Monday night and referred to the City Council’s Public Health and Welfare Committee for further review.
Boyd deferred comment on the proposed law until that meeting - which has not yet been scheduled.
There was no further comment by aldermen on the issue Monday night.
After the meeting, Pine Bluff resident Georgina Robinson said she hopes the proposed ordinance passes.She called the long-standing trend among some to show their underwear “despicable. No one wants to see that.”
Robinson added that she “is always telling my grandkids to pull their pants up. Now, maybe if a police officer is doing it, they will listen.”
In the ordinance presented Monday night, Boyd proposes a $25 fine for the first offense if a person is caught in “public view on public property wearing short or long pants or a skirt more than three inches below the top of the waistline, exposing skin or undergarments.”
A second offense would garner a $50 fine; a third $75; and $100 for subsequent offenses, according to the proposal.
A person would have an opportunity to avoid a fine if he “come into immediate compliance” after a verbal warning.
A similar ordinance was proposed in 2007, but its sponsor, then-Alderman Derwood Smith, pulled his legislation after a lack of support from fellow aldermen. At that time, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas spoke out against the proposal.
A call to the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas was not returned on Monday.
Boyd writes in his proposed ordinance that the law against sagging pants is needed “to preserve the character of the city, promote the visual attractiveness of the community [and] discourage offensive presentations or incitements… .”
Other communities have passed similar laws, including at least six in Louisiana, among which are Delcambre, Shreveport, Alexandria and Mansfield.
The issue of sagging pants has been a topic of discussion over the past several years.
North Little Rock’s City Council debated the issue in 2010, with one alderman saying at the time that he had several constituents who were concerned about the issue.
That city never addressed sagging pants through legislation, however.
In 2008, President Barack Obama told MTV Newsduring his campaign that he was among those who “might not want to see your underwear.”
American Idol contestant “General” Larry Platt’s performance of an original song in 2010 became an overnight pop-culture phenomenon with his lyrics “Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.”
And in 2010, a state senator in Brooklyn, N.Y., was behind the placing of “Stop the Sag” billboards. A New York City judge later ruled that sagging pants that show the wearer’s underwear are distasteful and foolish, but not illegal.
Back in Pine Bluff, Robinson sat in her tan Buick in the parking lot of City Hall. She eased down the window and said she had just sent a text to one of her grandsons teasing him about the “pants law.”
“See, I am already telling him it’s illegal,” she said, laughing. “One way or the other, that boy is gonna pull his pants up.”
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 05/21/2013