Michigan City Votes to Ban Annoying Behavior

Dec. 24, 2008— -- Some residents of a small Michigan town say an ordinance recently passed by the city council does exactly what it is supposed to prohibit: It annoys them.

As part of an amended harassment ordinance, the seven-member Brighton City Council voted this month to make annoying behavior a civil offense punishable by a $100 fine.

"I think it's the most ridiculous thing in the world," Brighton resident Charles Griffin told ABCNews.com. "And I think everyone who voted for it should be impeached."

But town officials say the local media has blown the issue way out of proportion and, as a result, residents are misinformed.

"It's not an annoyance ordinance," Brighton Police Chief Thomas Wightman said. "It's a harassment ordinance."

The legislation prohibits physical violence in public places, insulting another person in a public place or harassing another person by telephone, e-mail or other forms of communication.

But the paragraph many are paying attention to reads: "It shall be unlawful for a person to engage in a course of conduct or repeatedly commit acts that alarm or seriously annoy another person and that serve no legitimate purpose."

Brighton resident Patricia Cole, who says she attends most of the city council's twice-monthly meetings, said she'll be "very guarded" during the public comment portion now.

Cole likened the ordinance to being "harassment of the people."

That's ironic, given that city officials said they passed the law trying to prevent obnoxious behavior that could lead to something more dangerous.

Understanding the New Law

Residents, Wightman said, will not be ticketed for speaking out at public meetings, for talking too loud or for complaining to town officials.

What people will be ticketed for are things like continued neighborhood disputes, repeated text messages or ongoing harassment between ex-spouses or former boyfriends and girlfriends.

While state laws cover serious harassment, this city ordinance protects against lesser behaviors that are disturbing but may not rise to the level of state charges.

"It's not the laughing matter that some people have made it out to be," he said.

The Brighton ordinance, he said, is actually more stringent than many because the behavior has to occur repeatedly for a ticket to be issued.

Wightman, police chief of Brighton for 3 and a half years, said the town of Royal Oak, Mich. -- where he was the former police chief -- has had a similar ordinance against harassment for years.

He recently issued a memorandum that listed more than a dozen similar ordinances in Michigan alone. Northville's ordinance, for example, says it is unlawful not only to annoy, but to ogle, whistle or wolf-call at a person.

There are many other cities in the United States that have ordinances against "annoying" behavior.

Oak Ridge, N.C., has an ordinance against "unreasonably loud or annoying" music that interferes with "peace and good order."

And Glendale, Ohio, has an entire ordinance devoted to unlawfully harboring annoying animals.

What Is Annoying?

Back in Brighton, Chetly Zarko, a freelance writer who owns a consulting and research company, has penned a letter to the city council asking them to repeal the harassment ordinance.

The language, he wrote, "is both unconstitutionally vague (14th Amendment) and impedes on free expression rights under the First Amendment."

He cited a 1971 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that stated the city of Cincinnati's ordinance prohibiting annoying conduct was "so vauge that it may not be constitutionally applied to any conduct."

Zarko lives outside Brighton, but said he took an interest in the ordinance after it was passed.

When asked how he would define the word "annoying," Zarko said he was at a loss.

"It's like beauty," he said. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."

Town Councilman Jim Bohn said he initially had some concerns about how "subjective" the language was, but went on to vote for the ordinance.

The law as it stands, he said, applies to "no one I can think of."

He did ask the city attorney, however, if he would have been cited a few years ago when, before he was elected to the council, he "spoke his mind" about how the city was being operated.

"Was my behavior and the comments I made -- would that fall under the ordinance?" he said he asked. The attorney's answer was no, he said.

But regardless of whether this ordinance is being taken out of context, residents are concerned about the image it's giving their city.

Cole, who has lived in Brighton for more than 30 years, said it makes Brighton seem like an unfriendly place where the city council is "out of control."