Posted on 09/04/2006 11:36:43 PM PDT by Onelifetogive
DALLAS — A Dallas man has had it with baggy pants that overexpose, so he wants the City Council to look into a ban on wearing the oversized trousers that often slip so low as to show underwear.
Ron Price, a Dallas school board member, has asked the City Council to look at strengthening the law to give citations to those who expose their underwear.
“I think it’s disrespectful, it’s dishonorable and it’s disgusting,” said Price, who made the recommendation last week to the City Council. “I have no problem with the top of your Hanes label being shown. My problem is when grown men walk about the city with pants below their buttocks.”
Council members have asked the city attorney to look into the issue. City Attorney Tom Perkins said this week he’s investigating the legalities and will report back to the council.
But experts say that such a law might not hold up, so to speak.
It would be too vague, said Robert Jarvis, constitutional law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He said that for a criminal law to be constitutional, a person of average intelligence must know what’s being prohibited.
“Who’s to say how baggy pants can be before they’re ’baggy pants,”’ he said. “There’s just no way to regulate these things.”
Some Dallas City Council members are raising concerns about police attention being diverted to fashion instead of crime.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me that we are discussing banning baggy pants — we have important crime and public safety issues to be concerned with,” said council member Angela Hunt.
Council member Gary Griffith said he does not favor “taking policemen and women off patrol to track down and chase young people on how they’re dressing. That’s not the right use of our police force.”
Such proposals haven’t made it too far in recent years. In Virginia, the Senate dropped a bill last year the would have fined those with pants so low their underwear was exposed. A similar bill from a Louisiana state representative failed to pass in 2004. And such proposals haven’t faired well at the city level either.
“This is one of those areas where the legal battles have been fought, and we know what the answer is,” Jarvis said.
Lisa Graybill, legal director ACLU of Texas, called such a ban a “distraction.”
“It’s certainly difficult for me to imagine that it would stand up,” she said.
Price said the underwear issue came up after he took some elderly women to dinner and a group of men walked by with their pants so low their underwear was on display
“I just feel that it’s so disrespectful to our senior citizens, especially to women...,” he said.
He said that in the Dallas school district, most schools require students to wear uniforms and students also must wear belts and tuck in their shirts.
“In the city it’s a different deal,” he said. “I’m asking the city to do something about it. If the city decides law enforcement, so be it.”
School districts have a fairly wide discretion to set dress codes, said Naomi Gittins, staff attorney at the National School Boards Association.
For school districts, a dress code rule must be somehow related to the education mission. For instance, a district could show that in their area baggy pants are associated with gang membership and ban such apparel, she said.
Baggy, drooping pants got their fashion start with hip hop music, and then mainstream designers started producing them, said Mary Ruppert, assistant professor of fashion at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo.
A recent trip to a North Dallas mall showed lots of super baggy pants, but they were paired with long T-shirts so no underwear was evident.
Trip Dalrymple, 18, of Dallas, wore extremely loose pants, but his shirt was also very long. He said that if someone’s look includes showing their underwear, it’s just a matter of style, not something that should be banned.
Besides, he said, he wouldn’t want to get fined if his pants slipped.
Kendall Beck, 26, of Dallas, was wearing low pants, but his shirt was also long and tucked in. He said that he agreed with the proposal that people should be fined for showing their underwear.
“You’ve got to be presentable,” he said. Besides, showing underwear with super baggy pants is a look that’s “played out,” he said.
Ruppert, for one, agrees.
She said the current fashion pendulum is swinging heavily in another direction this fall: super skinny pants for both men and women.
“It is a radical jump this season, very thin leggings,” Ruppert said.
More stupid statism.
(No more Olmert! No more Kadima! No more Oslo! )
It wouldn't take much chasing. It's hard to run with your pants down around your knees.
Those baggy pants showing the underwear are the most senseless fashion statement that ever existed. Is it supposed to mean something? To me it means the wearer is a 100% cretin. They look like children who are too young to know you should up your pants after you go potty. But I don't think they should be banned because it is better that we know who the cretins are so we can shun them and/or make fun of them.
One school made it part of the dress code that pants/shorts cannot be two sizes larger than what fits the students.
Not a good idea. It would make law enforcement's job more difficult.
How long until someone cries that the attemptted ban is racist?
I just yell at them when I drive by, "Hey your pants are falling down!". Maybe it'll make one or two of them realize they look stupid. And that's my problem with it. They look absolutely stupid. Would you hire someone wearing that?
-Eric
Is that a Honda? I think I used to work with that guy!
That bike is just a few pounds away from being a suppository.
Every time I see someone dressed like this I want to yell at them to pull their pants up.
You're right. There was a truly heartwarming story in the WSJ a couple of months ago about the number of collars police make because the hood trips over his pants, gets them caught trying to jump a fence, etc. LOL!
Like I said -- heartwarming!
"Some Dallas City Council members are raising concerns about police attention being diverted to fashion instead of crime."
That's not a hard problem to solve, raise a new volunteer force of "fashion police" There will be plenty of volunteers ;)
I CAN SEE GIVING THAT A TICKET.
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