Undeterred by a lack of information about enforcement procedures and other logistical issues, the Fayetteville City Council on Tuesday evening voted 6-4 to pass the city attorney’s youth curfew ordinance.
The youth protection safety ordinance prohibits anyone 16 or younger from being out in public between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless they are with a parent or authorized guardian, or have a valid reason, according to the terms of the ordinance. Modeled after Charlotte’s ordinance, the curfew would carry criminal penalties for youth who break it as well as their parents and owners of establishments where curfew-breakers are discovered.
The city will not enforce the curfew immediately, allowing an unspecified grace period before full implementation takes place. The curfew is set to be discussed next at the June 9 council meeting, during which city staff will give a presentation about the work of a task force that has been established to assist in implementing the curfew.
At Tuesday’s meeting, city council members in favor of the regulation said the curfew is meant to protect youth from being victims and perpetrators of crime, as well as to bring accountability to “neglectful” parents who let their kids out at night.
“The intent is to encourage more compliance and partnerships from our parents,” Mayor Mitch Colvin 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 … And at the end of it, this is a personal responsibility. And so we hope that this is a community effort that will be addressed.”
This is not the first time the Fayetteville City Council has considered enacting a youth curfew. Proposals were also put forward, but ultimately rejected, in 2014 and 2023. City leaders got serious about enacting a curfew again during a special public safety meeting on May 5, called by Mayor Mitch Colvin to address the recent spike in gun violence and homicides. Fayetteville has experienced a surge in high-visibility gun violence incidents in the past couple of months, such as the Dogwood Festival shooting scare in April and gunfire that broke at a local carnival and badly injured a 12-year-old girl in March.
What’s in the ordinance
Enforcement of the ordinance would first require a police officer to ask about the age of the individual suspected of breaking the curfew, as well as their reason for being out. If the officer determines the individual is breaking the curfew, they can then “prepare a juvenile arrest report, issue a citation, or make an arrest,” the ordinance states.
In order to be charged with violating the curfew, a parent or guardian must “knowingly” allow the minor under their care to be in a public place past curfew hours. The ordinance defines “knowingly” as “knowledge that a parent should reasonably be expected to have concerning the whereabouts of a juvenile in that parent’s legal custody.”
A similar standard applies to owners of establishments or public places in Fayetteville. However, owners who suspect a youth is breaking the curfew by being on their property would not face penalties if they report the minor’s presence to the police. No such defense exists for parents or guardians.
Parents or guardians are required to take custody of youth under their care who are found to be in violation of the curfew. If they do not, it would also be considered a violation of the ordinance. It’s a violation of the ordinance if anyone 17 or older “aids and abets a juvenile to be out in a public space without a legal basis during the restricted hours.”
The ordinance has a dozen exceptions. These include cases of emergency, when a youth is working or going to or from their place of employment, on an errand for a parent or guardian, with an adult older than 21 who is authorized to accompany them, or exercising “First Amendment rights.” Other reasons that do not fall under the existing exceptions could also be legitimized by a parent or guardian obtaining a special permit from the Fayetteville Police Department.
Youth caught violating the curfew could be deemed an “adjudicated delinquent” by a judge, meaning they have been found guilty of a delinquent act, and thus entering them into the juvenile justice system. This is not the same as being convicted of a crime, but it can carry jail time depending on the judge’s discretion. Juvenile courts in North Carolina tend to focus on rehabilitation.
Anyone else who violates the curfew can be charged with a Class 3 misdemeanor and a maximum fine of $500.
Council members voting in opposition
Council Members Mario Benavente, Deno Hondros, Lynne Greene and Brenda McNair voted against passing the ordinance. Council members who opposed the proposal brought up unresolved issues they had with the ordinance, including questions they had asked the police chief and city attorneys during Tuesday’s discussion.
Hondros said he was concerned about various ambiguities in the ordinance, such as what happens after a child is detained for breaking the curfew but no parent comes to pick them up. City attorneys and the police chief did not have a clear answer to the question, other than that police would only be able to detain someone for 12 hours without arresting them.
Hondros also raised concerns about what happens if police decide that someone looks under 16 but they are not, which could potentially lead to unnecessary confrontation with law enforcement.
“To support an ordinance without the framework, I can’t do it,” Hondros said.
City Attorney Lachelle Pulliam acknowledged that there were unanswered questions about how the ordinance would be enforced, but she said city staff would spend the next two weeks determining the answers before presenting additional information to council members at the June 9 meeting.
“I’m comfortable with that because we are not ready to enforce,” Pulliam replied. “We will deploy the team that [special projects manager] Brook Redding has been leading. We will also train the officers. So we will have some interim steps before enforcement begins. So I don’t have any pause with adopting it today and implementing it later.”
Council members who voted against the curfew also sought more detailed definitions and guidelines regarding the exceptions to the curfew, particularly concerning what constitutes a “designated time frame and area” for juveniles accompanied by adults who are not their guardians, as per the ordinance. Benavente raised questions about how officers would handle situations where juveniles claimed to be exercising their First Amendment rights, such as participating in protests, which is one of the exceptions to the ordinance. City attorneys did not give a clear answer to the question.
“How dare we as a city council permit this process without any understanding of the consequences?” Benavente said.
Greene cited concerns about rushing to pass the ordinance without having key details in place. She said she had been listening to her colleagues and researching curfews in other places since discussions began, as well as reviewing emails from various constituents and concerned stakeholders. She suggested waiting to pass the ordinance until June 9 so all the details could be ironed out before making it municipal law.
“We are rushing a process that should not be rushed,” Greene said. “We need to make informed decisions. We may come back here, and I feel certain that we probably will. Honestly, within my heart, I feel that we will come back and we will probably make the same decision to enact the curfew, but we will be making it with all of these questions that everybody has expressed tonight answered.”
In addition to Colvin, Mayor Pro Tem Kathy Jensen and Council Members Derrick Thompson, Malik Davis, Courtney Banks-McLaughlin and D.J. Haire voted in favor of the curfew.
Colvin criticized his colleagues for trying to delay the curfew again after it failed two years ago.
“The delay is causing our kids to die in our streets,” Colvin said. Still, the mayor acknowledged that the curfew may not prove effective at keeping youth safe in the city, but he argued it needed to be tried here as one crime prevention method among others.
“So 500 cities have tried it, but this city hasn’t tried it,” Colvin said. “So we don’t know if it will work or if it won’t work. But it’s not an exception to — it’s in addition to — all of those things that we’ve talked about tonight and every time we bring this up.”
For an overview of the ordinance, including exceptions to rule, specific penalties and enforcement actions, read CityView’s previous reporting. Read the ordinance here.
Government accountability reporter Evey Weisblat can be reached at eweisblat@cityviewnc.com or 216-527-3608.
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