Atlanta To Ban Baggy Pants
Wow, this is just one more example of going where the law shouldn’t. If people want to dress like idiots with their pants sagging around their lower thighs, who cares? I have a better idea.
Instead of banning this particular "style", why not create a new ordanance that allows cops to organize impromtu footraces. It would be much more fun to see these guys (and gals?) stumbling and falling all over themselves jogging down the street.
Baggy pants that show boxer shorts or thongs would be illegal under a proposed amendment to Atlanta’s indecency laws.
The amendment, sponsored by city councilman C.T. Martin, states that sagging pants are an "epidemic" that is becoming a "major concern" around the country.
"Little children see it and want to adopt it, thinking it’s the in thing," Martin said Wednesday. "I don’t want young people thinking that half-dressing is the way to go. I want them to think about their future."
The proposed ordinance would also bar women from showing the strap of a thong beneath their pants. They would also be prohibited from wearing jogging bras in public or show a bra strap, said Debbie Seagraves, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia.
The proposed ordinance states that "the indecent exposure of his or her undergarments" would be unlawful in a public place. It would go in the same portion of the city code that outlaws sex in public and the exposure or fondling of genitals.
The penalty would be a fine in an amount to be determined, Martin said.
But Seagraves said any legislation that creates a dress code would not survive a court challenge. She said the law could not be enforced in a nondiscriminatory way because it targets something that came out of the black youth culture.
"This is a racial profiling bill that promotes and establishes a framework for an additional type of racial profiling," Seagraves said.
Martin, who is black, said he plans to hold public hearings and vet the proposal through churches, civil rights groups and neighborhood organizations. The proposal will get its first public airing next Tuesday in the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
"The purpose of the paper is to generate some conversation to see if we can find a solution," Martin said. "It will be like all the discussions we’ve had around the value of the hip-hop culture. We know there are First Amendment issues … and some will say I’m just trying to put young black men in jail, but it’s going to be fines."
Makeda Johnson, an Atlanta mother of a 14-year-old girl, said she is glad Martin introduced the proposal. She does not want to see a law against clothing, but said she thinks teenagers are sending a message with a way of dressing that is based in jailhouse behavior.
Atlanta would not be the first city to take on sagging pants.
Earlier this year, the town council in Delcambre, La., passed an ordinance that carries a fine of up to $500 or six months in jail for exposing underwear in public. Several other municipalities and parish governments in Louisiana have enacted similar laws in recent months.
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8 opinions for Atlanta To Ban Baggy Pants
A. Smith
Aug 24, 2007 at 9:18 am
Baggy pants and thongs must be banned, otherwise the next fad will be not pants at all.
shaina
Aug 24, 2007 at 8:24 pm
in my opinion, i think that this new law about baggy pants is not nessicary & that wearing your pants baggy is a way of expressing yourself & you sence in style. Just because you see all these teenage boys wearing their pants baggy doesnt mean that everyone else will start coppying them & this wont become an epidemic.
Lets see . the USA is supposed to be a place where we can be free to express ourselves and be who we are and who we were born to be, we cant help it if we like to wear our pants baggy. If that’s what we feel comfortable in. everyone should accept it because everone is different and unique .And if your asking the people who wear there pants baggy to change, then that’s just like telling sumbody who’s a different race to go back from where they came from.America is supposed to be a free place, to where we dont have to worry bout how we dress. If the teenagers with baggy pants were to start to carry around guns and knives now that would be a different story. But that’s not what’s happening. The goverment is changing the USA and the world to the way they want it to be, not how everyone else wants it to be.
Now we dont have laws against bi-sexuals ,gays, or lesbians do we?. & who would’ve thought that just because a few people came out into the open that more and more people would come out too and be themselves. IF you ban and make a law against baggy pants and fine everyone who wears them. i dont think that will help anyone out. or better yet solve any problems. all it will do is make innocent people pay money for dressing the way they want to and feel comfortable in. And also, by making this law, its like saying that if the goverment doesnt like the way the public dresses, it’s not good enough & that we have to obey their rules and their lifestyles. even if its not for the better of it.
but in conclusion,
i am not agreeing with this new law about baggy pants and i think instead of making this a law you should just warn the people who wear them, and if it becomes a serisous problem, like somehow the public is in danger then you should think about making the law. but not now. how is wearing baggy pants a crime and how is it harming or putting the public in danger? now u tell me.
SarahJ
Aug 28, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I could care less about the pants, it’s the bra straps that bother me. Most women don’t purposely leave their bra straps out as some sort of fashion statement. In most situations it is purely accidental, and it even happens to me a lot. Now, I don’t want to be fined for making an innocent mistake. I would no longer be able to wear some of my favorite tank tops, that are spaghetti straps, because I would be too worried about being fined. How rediculous.
Fort Worth Grandma Says No Baggy Pants
Jan 14, 2008 at 9:19 pm
[…] own crusade to discourage teenagers from wearing baggy pants. Following the example of Atlanta, Georgia and various municipalities in Louisiana, the city council will vote tomorrow whether or not to […]
Corey
Sep 15, 2008 at 7:58 pm
I dont see anything wrong with sagging your pants. You have people that exaggerate like it’s soooooo offensive but sagging usally only shows a pair of boxers.
I heard one guy say he’s tired of seeing peoples butt showing. I myself havent never seen skin from sagging pants and doubt if he has unless he has Xray vision. Maybe a female wearing thongs or something. And that didn’t offend me at all.
I think that law well mostly target young black and there’s already enough laws keeping us jailed.
I advise anyone who support this law to stay far away from the beach and swimming pools because there’s alot of underwear showing there. And you may see some man boobs.
Only thing that I can make sense of people being offended by people who sag is that they’re actually not offended but intimidated by them because they prejudge the person and associate them with being thugs, gangsters, etc
Brian Allen
Sep 16, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Unfortunately, people do judge you by your appearance. I’ll ask you this: Would you be comfortable if you needed life-saving surgery and your doctor walked in with sagging pants?
I’d be a little nervous.
Corey
Sep 16, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Nope wouldn’t let him check my temperture, but he shouldn’t be fined. And businesses should and most do have a dress code I mean that’s just proper but for a person walking around minding his own business shouldn’t have to worry about being fined or arrested for having saggy pants.
What’s next.
People will have to wear socks with sandals.
I dont like seeing ashy toes but do that make it right to fined or arrest someone for them.
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Sep 18, 2008 at 10:19 pm
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