The Main Street in middleborough, Massachusetts Source:thejournal.ie
At a town meeting in Middleborough, Massachusetts last night, residents voted 183-50 to approve a proposal from the police chief to impose a $20 fine on public profanity.
Officials insist the proposal was not intended to censor casual or private conversations, but instead to crack down on loud, profanity-laden language used by teens and other young people in the downtown area.
“I’m really happy about it,” Mimi Duphily, a store owner and former town selectwoman, said after the vote. “I’m sure there’s going to be some fallout, but I think what we did was necessary.”
The measure could raise questions about First Amendment rights, which allows for freedom of speech, but state law does allow towns to enforce local laws that give police the power to arrest anyone who “addresses another person with profane or obscene language” in a public place.
Middleborough, a town of about 20,000 residents perhaps best known for its rich cranberry bogs, has had a bylaw against public profanity since 1968. But because that bylaw essentially makes cursing a crime, it has rarely if ever been enforced, officials said, it simply would not merit the time and expense to pursue a case through the courts.
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SÃle Cleary is a regular contributor to Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter at @silecleary.
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