Uptown Columbus curfew for minors to go into effect this weekend. What to know
A curfew passed last Tuesday by the Columbus Council will go into effect Friday at 9 p.m. for minors in the Uptown District.
“The only difference will be that we will be able to use that ordinance starting this weekend,” Columbus Police Department Assistant Chief Lance Deaton told the Ledger-Enquirer.
The curfew ordinance was passed after more than 400 reported incidents occurred in the district last year, according to numbers provided by CPD.
Deaton previously told the Ledger-Enquirer a little less than half of these incidents involved juveniles but didn’t include the number of contacts police made with juveniles during that time period.
The curfew makes it unlawful for people under the age of 18 to be in any public area between Eighth Street to 14th Street and between Second Avenue and Bay Avenue in Columbus from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. each day.
Any parents, legal guardians or other adults having custody or control of any child under the age of 18 will be held responsible if the minor is found to be violating the curfew. Adults convicted of violating the ordinance would be punished with a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to 90 days or both, in accordance with Sec. 1-8 in the city code.
Deaton told the L-E Monday the department has started to see a decline in the number of kids that have been coming to the Uptown District.
“Last weekend, one night there was about 30 kids down there, and then Saturday night – some of this was probably because of the weather — but Saturday night there was about 20,” Deaton said.
While those numbers have gone down “dramatically,” Deaton said, that doesn’t alleviate all the problems.
Police encountered a group of six kids, one who had an aggravated assault warrant, with 40 grams of marijuana in the car, according to Deaton.
Deaton said police also had to take home 11 juveniles from the Uptown District and officers had to call multiple parents to return to Uptown to pick up their kids.
Officers were taking minors home only when they didn’t have rides scheduled, didn’t have cellphones or called their parents and the parents didn’t answer, he said.
Deaton said these are the kind of situations CPD will be focusing on under the new curfew.
There will be around 20 officers in the Uptown District between off-duty officers on the Uptown detail and officers allocated by the council, according to Deaton.
“The hope is we never have to write a citation, we never have to make these charges, that people will do what needs to be done, and then we’ll move on,” Deaton said.