Talk Union County Blog

MAYNARDVILLE CITY HALL — When the plan to update the City of Maynardville’s municipal code was first brought up by city attorney John Roach a few months ago, it sounded like a good idea. At council, it was presented by Roach as a simple revision that would bring the city into compliance with state laws by making sure the city wasn’t stepping out of its jurisdiction. In addition, the council could add new misdemeanor offenses to the code that would allow the city to levy more fines, providing much needed revenue. However, a closer examination of the proposed laws reveals a code filled with regulations and an unnerving amount of government interference into the lives of city residents.

Perhaps the most disturbing of the proposed municipal laws has to do with modifying the city’s curfew for minors. Under section 11-802, Maynardville would establish a curfew Monday through Thursday between the hours of 11:00 pm to 6:00 am for those between the ages of 17 and 18. Friday through Sunday, the curfew would extend until midnight.

According to the law, if a minor wishes to express his or her First Amendment rights, by say attending a sunrise religious service, a political function, or political protest, he or she is expected to give advanced notice to city officials and the mayor. The required information includes his or her name, home address, telephone number, when, where, and in what manner he or she will be on city streets.

Such requirements would make known the religion, political affiliation, and/or political views of those under the age of seventeen and possibly those of their parents and family members to city government. A spontaneous decision to attend a religious service such as midnight mass or sunrise service could result in a fine because a minor did not show “good faith” by contacting city authorities ahead of time. Under these restrictions, minors would be expected to ask de facto permission not of their parents but of the city and mayor in order to go to church, exercise their right to peaceably assemble, or exercise their rights to free speech after curfew.

Another of the proposed laws prohibits the wearing of a mask or hood in a public place or on someone else’s property within the city limits. The restriction, found in section 11-302, applies to outdoor areas within the city such as roads and sidewalks and makes no exemption for cold weather. It also fails to include an exemption currently in effect that allows children under the age of ten to wear hoods and masks and allows for traditional costumes to be worn for holidays.

In fact, the law is so restrictive that those of us who purchased hooded sweatshirts to show our support for the UCHS Patriots would be guilty of violating the code if we pulled our hoods up during a football game to protect ourselves from the cold. If we knocked on a neighbor’s door with the same hood pulled up and demanded to be let in the code would consider it “prima facie” evidence that our intent was to commit a misdemeanor.

Section 11-801 makes it the responsibility of business owners, managers, and store clerks to make sure that no one under 18 operates video games and/or miniature games during school hours or curfew. This section, does not take into account those that have graduated early, student schedules and programs that modify the hours a student is in school, home-schooled students, or any other circumstances such as a field trip or family emergency that might cause a student to be out of school during school hours. It also makes clear that the owner, operator, manager, or person in charge of any establishment that has a game of this type is responsible for the minor’s violation even if they were the victim of misinformation or lies.

There are many other examples that could be cited from the proposed code that show the proposed changes are far more than a simple update to Maynardville’s existing title 11 — regulations on the size of hedges, barbed wire fences, and making it a fifty dollar offense to bring food or beverages into a public building that has a sign prohibiting food and beverages come to mind.

In fact, it is the number of new offenses and restrictions that makes the wholesale adoption of a new title 11 code for the City of Maynardville so questionable. Instead of merely updating Maynardville’s current title 11 offenses, the city attorney has prepared an ordinance that would delete the city’s old title 11 in its entirety and substitute it with one that would vastly change the city’s municipal regulations and offenses. So far, council members have delayed enacting the new code, questioning first the language of one of the laws that forbade “peeping into outhouses” and then, at last month’s meeting, a few of the provisions on firing guns. However, the rest of the laws have not been commented on. Nor has the question of why the City of Maynardville needs so many new laws and restrictions been asked.