Board of Education Votes 5-0 to Oppose Daytime Curfew Laws

COSTA MESA — The movement launched last year to give police broad powers to stop and ticket truant children in Orange County is fast losing steam.

On Thursday, the Orange County Board of Education unanimously approved a strongly worded resolution opposing so-called daytime curfews, calling them “inconsistent with a free society.”

The 5-0 vote was only advisory. But the action came just over a week after the city of Cypress repealed its short-lived daytime curfew. Now only three Orange County cities--Buena Park, Seal Beach and La Habra--have such laws.

“It’s a patriotic resolution,” said Ken L. Williams, a board member. “We’re trying to send a statement that daytime curfews are not what the people want. This takes away from the freedom and liberties of our fellow Americans.”

Backers say curfews give police leverage to keep kids under age 18 out of trouble during normal school hours. The laws seek to beef up the state truancy code, which says that children must attend school, with certain exceptions. Monrovia, in Los Angeles County, passed a pioneering curfew law in 1994.

Last summer, a coalition of law-enforcement officials and school administrators proposed a model curfew law for cities throughout the county. It called for police to issue a $100 citation to any school-age person who fails to give a legitimate reason for not being on campus from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

But cities are balking.

“People are 10 to 1 against this,” said Cypress Mayor Tom Carroll, who led the repeal movement in his city and spoke at an anti-curfew rally before the board of education meeting. “Most cities aren’t doing anything and letting it die of its own weight.”

Critics have attacked the proposed laws on a variety of fronts, saying that civil liberties would be trampled and that ethnic minority children could be singled out unfairly by police as potential troublemakers. They say that tens of thousands of Orange County children on any weekday venture off campus because of vacations, doctor’s appointments or work programs.

In addition, many kids are taught at home and spend their “recess” playing in a park or skateboarding around the block. Critics wonder why such kids should be stopped by police.

About 50 curfew critics, mainly parents and children, demonstrated against curfews before the board meeting. They held signs reading: “Do not criminalize my children” and “Who will they stop? Selective enforcement?”

Dario Lopez, 14, an eighth-grader from Laguna Niguel, said, “It’s against our civil rights. Say you’re sick, and you’re staying at home, and you need to go outside and get something to eat. You can’t be stopped just for walking in the street.”

Top Orange County law-enforcement officials, including Sheriff Brad Gates and La Habra Police Chief Steven Stavely, who is president of a countywide chiefs group, were not immediately available for comment on Thursday’s vote. There appeared to be no pro-curfew group at the meeting.

One La Habra police official said the curfew, enacted there last year, appears to be working.

“It keeps kids in school, where they belong,” Lt. Steven Costanzo said. “Anything that keeps kids in school during school hours seems to me to be a very positive thing. I know people are aware of it. Kids come in and ask questions about it, and parents ask about it. That would suggest to me that it’s having an impact.”

Kimberly Menninger, a deputy district attorney who has helped write proposed curfew laws, said she couldn’t judge whether the idea is losing momentum in Orange County. She said she was “very surprised” by Thursday’s vote.

“I think those cities that want it will still pursue it, and those cities that don’t want it will not pursue it,” she said.