New curfew and ban on backpacks approved
OCEAN CITY — After being overwhelmed by unruly youths with “a mob-like mentality” creating havoc over Memorial Day weekend, Ocean City Council approved a new curfew Thursday and a ban on backpacks to keep them from bringing alcohol onto the boardwalk in the evenings.
The revised curfew is also meant to “strengthen parental responsibility for children.” Officials have repeatedly said parents and guardians need to do their part to educate their children and make them accountable for their actions. It aims to promote safety for juveniles “whose inexperience renders them particularly vulnerable to becoming participants in unlawful activities.”
The special council meeting Thursday afternoon was scheduled to provide the final stamp of approval on two new ordinances. No citizens spoke during the public hearings of the ordinances and neither did members of council before adopting them unanimously on second reading.
The new curfew makes it unlawful for any minor under the age of 18 “to be on any public street or in a public place” between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. “unless accompanied by the juveniles’ parents or guardian or unless engaged in, or traveling to or from, a business or occupation” allowed by state law. That includes juveniles being in a motor vehicle operating or parking on the premises.
The revised ordinance makes it an offense for a parent, legal guardian or caretaker to allow unaccompanied juveniles to be out in public during those hours or for the owner/operator of any establishment to allow juveniles on the premises during the curfew hours.
The ordinance also spells out that it is unlawful for any person, including any juvenile, “to give a false name, address or telephone number to any officer investigating a possible violation ….”
Police say problems began to arise when the state approved the Cannabis Regulatory Enforcement Assistance and Marketplace Modernization Act (CREAMMA) in 2021 that legalized the sale and consumption of cannabis products for adults.
CREAMMA, police say, tied their hands when it came to juveniles because it limited their authority to stop, question, search and detain them for potential infractions such as underage possession and consumption of alcohol or drugs. The change in law was intended to keep underage infractions from becoming a juvenile record that could harm their prospects in the future, but an unintended consequence was juveniles using those limits to flout the law in shore communities because they did not have to identify themselves to police, making them feel invulnerable to prosecution.
Police were not allowed to search them even if they saw illegal drugs or alcohol in their possession if they hid the contraband in a pocket or a backpack.
During a news conference June 1, Ocean City Police Chief Jay Prettyman said the department issued 632 curbside warnings over Memorial Day weekend in 2022, but that number almost doubled to 1,100, calls for service rose from 869 to 999 and shoplifting complaints jumped form 60 to 90 this year.
“The sheer frequency that we are seeing over the last three summers, each year it’s getting worse and worse and worse,” Prettyman said.
There also were more fights and weapons offenses and eight juveniles had to be taken to the hospital because they were unconscious due to alcohol consumption.
Ocean City also is closing all of its beaches at 8 p.m. every night to prevent the massive gatherings of juveniles.
A curbside warning, according to the police chief, is the lowest level of enforcement by police. The ordinance says juveniles will be provided at least two curbside warnings to leave the public place and if they refuse after the second would be subject to a “station house adjustment” in which the parent or guardian would be called.
No summons or delinquency charge will be issued to the juvenile, but the parent or guardian, if found guilty, could be fined from $250 to $500 for a first offense, up to $1,000 on a second offense and up to $1,500 for a third.
The other ordinance prohibits “all backpacks” on the boardwalk from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. daily from May 15 to Sept. 15. Also prohibited are bags larger than 8” by 6” by 8” including book bags, fanny packs, cinch bags, coolers, briefcases, luggage, computer bags and camera bags. (Exceptions include medical devices, active fishing and essential equipment for journalists operating in a professional capacity and on-duty police officers.)
The police will provide two warnings and juveniles or adults found with a prohibited item will be directed to an exit of the boardwalk. Failure to comply with this ordinance is considered a breach of the peace.
An adult who violates the section will be subject to a fine of $25 to $50 for a first offense, up to $65 for a second and $100 for a third.
A juvenile will be issued two curbside warnings and then be subject to a station house adjustment with the parent or guardian being called.
“All of us need to look in the mirror and take responsibility. This isn’t a kid thing, this is us. We’re adults, we have gray hair, but we have to promote and we have to educate but we also have to hold accountability,” Mayor Jay Gillian said at the June 1 news conference. “That’s the one thing that we’re not doing.”
“I talk to parents constantly and I’m getting tired of parents telling me it’s their kids’ rite of passage. I’m getting tired of listening to parents say they rented that house because it was prom weekend and they didn’t think the kids were going to get in trouble,” Prettyman said.
He noted his department decided that it had to be a parent that came to pick up every youth detained on a station house adjustment, “not their grandmother or their aunt or the person they are here with, we make the parent come.”
The city announced it also is closing beaches at 8 p.m. daily to prevent gatherings.
Editor’s note: Staff writer Craig D. Schenck contributed to this story.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff