Mayor Mitch Colvin and the Fayetteville City Council had been round and round Tuesday debating the pros and cons of a Youth Protection Safety Ordinance, which has polarized this city dating back to 2021.
Call it a fancy curfew name for young people aged 16 and under, because that’s just what the ordinance is, with some reasonable caveats such as sporting and school events, religious activities and personal emergencies, from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. in the city.
Council member Mario Benavente questions the fairness and constitutionality of the policy. Council members Deno Hondros, Brenda McNair and Lynne Bissette Greene have some lingering issues with the curfew, too.
But it was Greene who on Tuesday put the debate into perspective.
“Unfortunately, every child doesn’t have the benefit of having great parents,” Greene passionately told her colleagues during the Fayetteville City Council meeting at City Hall.
Therein, if you will, lies the rub.
The curfew, all of us must understand, is as much about responsible parenting as it is in keeping those 16-year-olds and younger off the streets, so they don’t become perpetrators of crime or themselves crime victims.
Benavente, a two-term councilman and lawyer who wants to be mayor, has argued that curfews are not effective, and can unfairly lead young people into the criminal justice system, and the councilman has a point.
“I know that Mitch has got a strongarm on at least four people on this council, so I’m looking very, very deeply that at least five of us use common sense here and get all the information available before we move forward with this criminalization curfew,” Benavente said Tuesday, as the one-time activist pleaded for further thought regarding just how a juvenile curfew will be enforced. “I’m hoping that at least five of my colleagues will stand up and do the right thing.”
Council member Derrick Thompson offered another consideration.
“I would just like for my colleagues to realize that the people that are being harmed out there — the people that are being killed — look like me,” Thompson said, “and I want to make sure that we do all we can to make sure [that if] we can save one life it’ll be well worth it. I think we need to use every tool in the toolbox to keep our city safe.”
This city council last pondered a youth curfew in 2023, which was supported by then-Police Chief Kem Braden.
It failed.
It’s back after a frustrated Mayor Mitch Colvin reacted two days after April 26, when gunfire interrupted the second night of the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival and sent thousands of festivalgoers fleeing the park by order of the Fayetteville Police Department. There has been no evidence that juveniles were involved, although the mayor has said “a 14-year-old was caught with a stolen weapon the night of the shooting” in the downtown streets.
It’s when the mayor brought the idea of a youth curfew back to the City Council’s attention, and on Tuesday, Colvin joined with council members Kathy Keefe Jenson, Courtney Banks-McLaughlin, D.J. Haire, Malik Davis and Thompson in passing the Youth Protection Safety Ordinance. Council members in opposition were Brenda McNair, Hondros, Greene and Benavente.
“How dare we as a city council sort of just permit this process without any understanding of the consequences,” Benavente said before the vote.
Greene said it was a rushed vote, arguing that she wanted more details about how the curfew will be enforced, as did Hondros. It was not unreasonable thinking, and Tuesday’s decision may have been premature.
The mayor sees it another way.
“Again, the intent is to encourage more compliance and partnerships from our parents,” Colvin, 51, said. “As a parent, I’ve raised three in this community, and I always wanted to know where my girls were at 15 years old at 11 o’clock. That’s just reasonable in my opinion and in my house, because it was the same that my mother and grandmother required of me.
“So, this is not an attack on freedoms.
“What this is, is a cry for help from the home to say we need help with this, because I don’t want Chief Joyce [the interim police chief] and his team to have to ask somebody where my kids are at 15 years old at 11 or 12 at night,” the mayor said. “I should know.”
Any delay on a juvenile curfew, Colvin said, “is causing our kids to die in our streets.”
A grieving mother’s words
Everyone has an opinion on this Youth Protection Safety Ordinance, but it was council member Greene, who reminded the council best that not every 16-year-old is fortunate to grow up in a home with “the benefit of having great parents.”
This curfew is as much about responsible parenting as it is about the children they bring into this world. When you are age 16, you need to be home at 11 p.m., and if you are not home, parents need to know where you are, why you are not home and who you are with when out.
Think what you will about this city curfew for those aged 16 and under. And when you are thinking, think of a mother’s words.
“Dear Dani,” Susan Golcher wanted her daughter to know at the Celebration of Life for the 19-year-old at Crystal Springs Chapel. “I love you. I want you to know I couldn’t have had a better daughter. I know you love me so much. I wanted you to have the best life possible. I love you with all my heart, and I will never stop loving you, Dani.”
Danielle Claire Golcher died around 1:30 a.m. on July 17, 2023, after coming out of a Valero gas station along Bragg Boulevard, and where the young woman with a love for animals and her Hope Mills softball teammates took her last breath.
Two brothers, who were ages 16 and 15, are charged in the gunfire that took her life, according to the Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office.
Epilogue
Some of us see this youth curfew with hopes of safeguarding young teenagers. And some of us see this youth curfew as a call for responsible parenting. And all of us should see it as a combination of both. However this Youth Protection Safety Ordinance unfolds in this city, it begins in the home. And if you are the parent of a young teenager who is 16 and younger, it should begin with you as a responsible parent.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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