Dallas official wants city ban on baggy pants

[Amelia]

Dallas official wants city ban on baggy pants

By JAMIE STENGLE

Associated Press

4 Sept, 2006

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DALLAS — A Dallas man has had it with baggy pants that overexpose, so he wants the City Council to look into a ban on wearing the oversized trousers that often slip so low as to show underwear.

Ron Price, a Dallas school board member, has asked the City Council to look at strengthening the law to give citations to those who expose their underwear.

“I think it’s disrespectful, it’s dishonorable and it’s disgusting,” said Price, who made the recommendation last week to the City Council. “I have no problem with the top of your Hanes label being shown. My problem is when grown men walk about the city with pants below their buttocks.”

Council members have asked the city attorney to look into the issue. City Attorney Tom Perkins said this week he’s investigating the legalities and will report back to the council.

But experts say that such a law might not hold up, so to speak.

It would be too vague, said Robert Jarvis, constitutional law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He said that for a criminal law to be constitutional, a person of average intelligence must know what’s being prohibited.

“Who’s to say how baggy pants can be before they’re ’baggy pants,”’ he said. “There’s just no way to regulate these things.”

Some Dallas City Council members are raising concerns about police attention being diverted to fashion instead of crime.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that we are discussing banning baggy pants — we have important crime and public safety issues to be concerned with,” said council member Angela Hunt.

Council member Gary Griffith said he does not favor “taking policemen and women off patrol to track down and chase young people on how they’re dressing. That’s not the right use of our police force.”

Such proposals haven’t made it too far in recent years. In Virginia, the Senate dropped a bill last year the would have fined those with pants so low their underwear was exposed. A similar bill from a Louisiana state representative failed to pass in 2004. And such proposals haven’t faired well at the city level either.

“This is one of those areas where the legal battles have been fought, and we know what the answer is,” Jarvis said.

Lisa Graybill, legal director ACLU of Texas, called such a ban a “distraction.”

“It’s certainly difficult for me to imagine that it would stand up,” she said.

Price said the underwear issue came up after he took some elderly women to dinner and a group of men walked by with their pants so low their underwear was on display

“I just feel that it’s so disrespectful to our senior citizens, especially to women...,” he said.

He said that in the Dallas school district, most schools require students to wear uniforms and students also must wear belts and tuck in their shirts.

“In the city it’s a different deal,” he said. “I’m asking the city to do something about it. If the city decides law enforcement, so be it.”

School districts have a fairly wide discretion to set dress codes, said Naomi Gittins, staff attorney at the National School Boards Association.

For school districts, a dress code rule must be somehow related to the education mission. For instance, a district could show that in their area baggy pants are associated with gang membership and ban such apparel, she said.

Baggy, drooping pants got their fashion start with hip hop music, and then mainstream designers started producing them, said Mary Ruppert, assistant professor of fashion at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo.

A recent trip to a North Dallas mall showed lots of super baggy pants, but they were paired with long T-shirts so no underwear was evident.

Trip Dalrymple, 18, of Dallas, wore extremely loose pants, but his shirt was also very long. He said that if someone’s look includes showing their underwear, it’s just a matter of style, not something that should be banned.

Besides, he said, he wouldn’t want to get fined if his pants slipped.

Kendall Beck, 26, of Dallas, was wearing low pants, but his shirt was also long and tucked in. He said that he agreed with the proposal that people should be fined for showing their underwear.

“You’ve got to be presentable,” he said. Besides, showing underwear with super baggy pants is a look that’s “played out,” he said.

Ruppert, for one, agrees.

She said the current fashion pendulum is swinging heavily in another direction this fall: super skinny pants for both men and women.

“It is a radical jump this season, very thin leggings,” Ruppert said.

[Nicodema]

LOL. Some people are never happy until they can control others.

Personally I think it looks stupid as all get-out, but that doesn't mean I would want my tax dollars wasted on a ridiculous anal-control-freak law like this. The presence of clothing to cover "private" areas is sufficient a rule, methinks.

Thankfully, I don't live in Dallas. (armpit of the southwest)

[cricket]

I really think the best way to put an end to these sorts of questionable fashion is to have EVERYONE do it! Grannies and Gramps, Moms and Dads, Hoodlums and Hicks--you name it! When the young men and women of today see that it's no longer "hip" to look ridiculous, it'll end!

[Nicodema]

Grasshopper I've said it before & I'll say it again: you're sharp! <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

[Barbara]

That would be a good idea, but I for one would not wear them. I wouldn't be able to keep up with my kid if my pants were falling down all the time. I have always wanted to walk up to one of these kids and pull their pants up.

[Dr. Shane]

The issue should be dealt with by local school boards and universities. The school officials can ban these and enforce such a ban. It really shouldn't be something the police are getting involved with.

[cricket]

Shane, the local school boards and universities are dealing with it. The problem is that the majority of local malls and other teen "hang-outs" are not. Also, some parents aren't putting a stop to their own children dressing this way.

[Dr. Shane]

Well, as long as they are covering their skin, I don't see that public nudity laws would apply. Schools can and should have dress codes. If the schools are dealing with it, I would let it go with that.

[Gail]

What? This only covers students and not plumbers and otherwise middle-aged crack-spackle candidates?

<img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

[LynnDel]

What country do we live in again? Ah, America! Yes, land where you can show a cleavage on either end; land where you're free to look stupid if you wish. Go Freedom!

Next thing you know, everyone in Dallas will be wearing blue pajamas, like they used to in one of those dictatored countries.

LD

[Nan]

If a law like this was passed, the next step would be something related to the top end of the females. But then again, maybe there are lawmakers who do not mind that kind of exposure. <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/adventist/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

I think the low slung pants look ridiculous - and usually distinctly offputting - but that does not mean there should be a law against it. I am with Barbara, I would not find it very convenient to be wearing such things!!

[Parade Orange]

what the young men dont know is that alot of gay men like to see their pants hang off their buttocks!

just alert them to that and maybe they will pull up their pants for goodness sakes

and while they're at it lets hang a shower curtain on all their hoops and rings hanging off their eyebrows nose tongue and noses peircings.

[Gail]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr />

and while they're at it lets hang a shower curtain on all their hoops and rings hanging off their eyebrows nose tongue and noses peircings.

<hr /></blockquote><font class="post">

Just trying to picture that...