MIDDLETOWN — Business owners view Middletown’s new curfew ordinance as a necessary tool to keep young troublemakers in check after hours.
Unanimously approved Monday by the town commissioners, the new law takes effect Dec. 18. Drafted to counter late-night vehicle and home break-ins believed to be the work of teenagers, the youth curfew ordinance is intended to keep people younger than 18 off the streets between 12:01 a.m. and 5 a.m.
“We need a curfew. It keeps hoodlums off the streets,” said Valerie Mascaro, a Middletown mother and hairstylist at Elisa’s Salon & Day Spa.
“I like the law,” said J.P. Patel, owner of the BP gas station in Middletown.
Patel echoed several other business owners, saying not much good can be expected from teenagers who are out after midnight.
“There are many good kids in Middletown, but a few (bad kids) tend to influence the good ones,” Patel said. “They can harass a neighborhood they don’t like. This law will cut down on bad activity.”
If the law is effective, Subway manager Peter Smith said he is all for it. Teenagers hang out at the shop, but with a 10 p.m. closing time, Smith said he is not worried.
“I wasn’t up to any good when I was under 18 and out after midnight, so the law is good,” said Mary Burns, a waitress at The Main Cup restaurant. “My mom always said nothing good happens after midnight, especially around here.”
Wendi Dorr likes the law, but the owner of James Gang Pizzeria is concerned the curfew will not target the troublemakers.
“I think the kids who are causing the problems are 18 and will not be affected by the law,” Dorr said. “I don’t think it will affect the actual crime they’re trying to prevent.”
Town Administrator Drew Bowen said the new ordinance provides sheriff’s deputies with another tool to help keep people and property safe. It will not be the only tool they need, he said.
“If it’s 2 a.m. and there’s a group of juveniles on the street, they can question them,” Bowen said. “We’ve found that not a whole lot of good things happen after midnight.”
The new law will require no extra work or hours from the deputies, Bowen said, adding that the deputies enforce other town ordinances. For example, they issue citations for parking and skateboarding violations.
The new law has seven exceptions, including when a youth is accompanied by a parent and when a youth is attending or returning home by a direct route without any detour or stop from a town event, school activity or any activity with a religious or civic organization, or a place of public entertainment, such as a movie, play or sporting event.
Other exceptions include when the youth is engaged in a legal employment or is returning from or going to work by a direct route; when a youth is on the property where he or she lives or on the sidewalk abutting his or her residence; and when the youth is exercising First Amendment rights protected by the U.S. Constitution, including the rights of freedom of speech, assembly and the exercise of religion, and in case of emergency.
Violators of the curfew will be guilty of a municipal infraction; their parents will be subject to fines in accordance with the town’s code.
Dorr said the ordinance makes it easier to keep her own child in because she can say, “It’s not me, it’s the law.”
Dorr said that teens hang out at her pizza shop, but they are not troublemakers.
“We’re lucky,” she said.
