A furious debate-argument-shouting match erupted on comedian Rickey Smiley’s morning show on Tuesday, Sept. 7, after he supported a Georgia town’s bill to outlaw baggy or sagging pants.
Many people objected to arming law enforcement with additional measures to accost, harrass or apprehend black youth. Others, conversely, support a measure that will force young urbanites to pull their pants over their underwear in public.
The debate stemmed from a Dublin, Ga., town, which is about an hour south of Atlanta, which will make wearing obscenely sagging pants a citywide offense.
Mayor Phil Best will sign the law on Tuesday, he told CNN. People will be ticketed if their pants sit three inches below the waist, exposing skin or underwear. Fines will range between $25 and $200. The ban also extends to skirts.
Best said the town instituted the ban after receiving complaints from residents.
“We’ve gotten several complaints from citizens saying the folks with britches down below their buttocks was offensive, and wasn’t there something we could do about it,” Best said. “It’s time we all have a mutual respect for each other … what a person does in the privacy of their home is fine, but if I had an 8-year-old daughter, I don’t think she needs to be subjected to looking at someone’s rear end.”
According to CNN’s report, the ordinance outlawing baggy pants will have the carry the same penalty as other public nuisances such as masturbation, fornication and urination in public places.
The mayor said that after about a year of fielding complaints, he put the city attorney to work researching how other localities have dealt with the derriere dilemma. Dublin isn’t the only town to ban low-riding pants. The style is also banned in Flint, Mich., and Delcambre, La. A ban was passed in Riviera Beach, Fla., in 2008 but was later deemed unconstitutional.
Politicians are also accruing political capital by renouncing the style. In March, New York state Senator Eric Adams launched a “Stop the Sag” billboard campaign.
“This sagging pants culture represents an immature disregard for the basic civility, courtesy, and responsibility that our young men should display,” Adams said at the time. –terry shropshire
