Struthers officials: Keep pants pulled up

By jeanne starmack

starmack@vindy.com

struthers

Kids, listen: When you’re in the Struthers city building, or anywhere in the city, for that matter, keep your pants on.

The whole way on — half-way doesn’t count.

In city police reports, it’s called “busting a sag.” If you’re walking down the street with your flowered boxers sticking out 10 inches above your jeans, you might get a lecture from a police officer if one sees you.

If you’re in the city building, you’re likely to get a lecture from Ed Wildes, the city’s safety-services director, who is asking city council for an ordinance to cover the issue of sagging pants so he doesn’t have to see your underwear anymore.

Wildes brought his request to a council caucus meeting Wednesday.

“It’s just hard to regulate how people dress,” Dominic Leone, the city’s law director, told him. “But I could pull the indecency ordinance out and look at expanding it.”

“I would like to take a common-sense approach,” Wildes replied. “You shouldn’t walk around with your pants hanging off your [butt].”

“You wouldn’t go into a job interview like that,” he continued, or into the courtroom or a school, he pointed out.

“I’ll be damned if I’ll let them in city hall like that,” he said.

“You start letting the youth in this community dictate what’s going to be done in this community, and you’ve got chaos,” he added. “It starts with a dress code.”

Leone said he’ll review the law already on the books and make a recommendation to council.

“It might already be in there,” he said. “Why create a new law?”

He also said it’s hard for a city to tell people how to dress, because the city could run afoul of the U.S. Constitution.

“I just don’t think we can regulate how people dress, as long as they’re covered up,” he said.