If you’re not old enough to have a driver’s license, then you’re not old enough to be out past midnight.
That’s the crux of a new ordinance currently being considered by the Milledgeville City Council. Mayor Pro Tem Denese Shinholster, sitting in for Mayor Mary Parham Copelan, delivered the “first reading” of the ordinance during Tuesday’s regular meeting.
Milledgeville Police Department Chief Dray Swicord told The Baldwin Bulletin that the ordinance is “much needed.”
“I think a lot of folks would be surprised how often our department deals with this, especially when school lets out for the summer. I’m talking about 12-year-olds being out until 2 or 3 in the morning,” he said. “Their parents have no idea where they are, because the parents aren’t taking accountability.”
As “teen takeovers” have become a viral trend, which are when young people use social media to coordinate large meetups, teen curfews have become a local government trend. The city of Atlanta recently updated its teen curfew statute, as did the city of Macon.
Like the one in Macon, the proposed ordinance in Milledgeville would hit parents in the pocketbook. Parents or legal guardians would receive a “warning citation” following the first time their child was documented violating curfew, while any occurrence after that would lead to a $500 fine, according to the proposed ordinance.
Keep in mind that the word “unsupervised” is in the first sentence of the proposed ordinance, and there would be no citations issued if someone under the age 16 was out past curfew with a parent or legal guardian.
The hours of Milledgeville’s proposed ordinance are 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. on weekdays and midnight to 5 a.m. on weekends. There’s also a “daytime curfew” during school hours on school days.
Exceptions to the curfew would only be allowed in the case of “emergency errands,” which covers “an unforeseen combination of circumstances that call for immediate action.” Reads the ordinance: “A fire, natural disaster or automobile accident, or any situation requiring immediate action to prevent serious bodily injury or loss of life.”
City Council is expected to vote on the ordinance at some point within the next month.