Fla. city joins fight against baggy pants

The majority-black city’s commissioners say the hip-hop style is disrespectful.

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

OPA-LOCKA, Fla. — Wagging her finger, Ines Reid summons the young man with jeans belted below his buttocks to her parked car. “Baby, pull up your pants,” she says. “That’s no style. You’re showing your underwear.”

That gentle admonition came from the heart of the 72-year-old mother of four grown sons — but soon it could carry the weight of law.

The Opa-locka City Commission was poised Tuesday to make this majority-black city of 15,000 in Miami-Dade County the first in Florida to ban sagging shorts or pants that expose boxers, briefs or bare skin below the belt — or at least where the belt is supposed to be.

“It’s not decent. It’s not respectful. Showing your butt sends a terrible message,” said Commissioner Timothy Holmes, the measure’s sponsor.

Nonsense, counters Mark Gelin, as he leaves the Discount City convenience store, plaid boxers prominent above his low-riding denim shorts.

“Don’t they know you can’t judge people by how they look?” the 30-year-old thrift store manager said. “I get my money legal. I don’t sell drugs. If they’re going to buy my clothes, then they can tell me what to wear.”

The urban fashion that started in prisons and was popularized by hip-hop artists in the early 1990s already has inspired anti-sagging laws — or debates about adopting them — in cities and state capitals from Texas to New York. The small town of Hawkinsville just became the first Georgia city to adopt such a ban, following the lead of six cities or parishes in Louisiana, and beating its big sister, Atlanta, to the punch. In Tallahassee, state Sen. Gary Siplin, D-Orlando, has filed a bill, SB320, to ban low-riding pants in public schools.

Some of the laws elsewhere carry fines, jail time or community service, but Opa-locka’s has no penalties. The ordinance would allow police only to evict offenders from city property, including the library, parks and the historic Arabian-themed city hall where the ban was expected to pass Tuesday night.

To civil libertarians, that makes Opa-locka’s ban less offensive — but still unwarranted governmental intrusion that invites racial profiling.

“The fact is most kids who dress that way are black or Hispanic, so these laws target a specific group,” said Brandon Hensler, a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida. “It allows law enforcement to become fashion police for minority youth.”