Athens Police Capt. Tom Pyle Monday night explained how the police will enforce the city’s nuisance-party ordinance if City Council reduces the number of offenses or “conditions” that trigger the law from four to one.

Pyle appeared during a council committee meeting.

Drawn up in 2004, the nuisance-party ordinance has been difficult for the city to prosecute. Police Chief Richard Mayer previously explained to council that in order to get a conviction on the ordinance, police have to prove that four separate violations are taking place at the residence.

Pyle said the amendment would make enforcement of the ordinance easier, and that he has had several discussions with Chief Mayer about how it will be enforced if passed.

“He and I are in agreement that we should hold to an administrative policy still requiring four violations,” Pyle said. “But the standard would be much less with this revision. No convictions would be required, only what’s called probable cause.”

This stems from the addition of the phrase “conditions” into the ordinance, where previously “offenses” were required. While “offenses” require a conviction in a court of law, Pyle said he understands “conditions” to mean probable cause.

“If we could develop probable cause for four individual violations, then we would enforce the nuisance-party ordinance at that time,” Pyle told council. “I kind of envision it that we would not use the nuisance-party ordinance unless the party was either obviously out of control when we arrive — spilling into the street, fights, assaults, that sort of thing – where we would want to use it immediately. Or it could be a natural progression of warnings and citations leading up to that point.”

Pyle said that he also sees the amended ordinance as a good deterrent to keep parties from getting to the point where they become confrontational with law enforcement. While the law would require only one perceived violation by an officer, the police would internally impose an administrative rule to reach four perceived violations. 

Pyle cited current enforcement of the city’s noise law as an example of reasonable officer discretion. The police could theoretically go around writing citations for violations of the noise law any night past 10 on weekdays and midnight on weekends. However, the police instead wait for complaints to come in, and often issue warnings first.

“That’s an example of how we use our discretion to get things done without writing tickets to everyone in town,” Pyle said. “So I think we would use this policy, if it’s passed, in the same manner. We would keep it in reserve and utilize it when we’re experiencing non-compliance from people.”

He also pointed out that the amended ordinance would give the police the capacity to shut a party down, not just write a citation.

Third Ward council member Nancy Bain said that during her tenure on council, over the past several years police have changed their approach so that they don’t just lower the boom every chance they get.

“The term I prefer to use is community-oriented,” Pyle said. “I think we’re trying to recognize students as community members and deal with the community as all-inclusive.”

At-large council member Elahu Gosney repeated his concern about council taking steps to amend the ordinance during the summer months when the majority of Ohio University students are not around to provide feedback.

Gosney asked Pyle what he thought about enforcement if the ordinance were rewritten to require four conditions, instead of four offences.

Pyle said that he isn’t sure, as it would be open to interpretation by a judge. He said the question that sticks out to him is whether one perpetrator could meet all four conditions, or whether four separate people committing separate violations would be required. “However council writes it, we will do our best to enforce it,” Pyle said.

Gosney also reiterated his concern that “cutting it down from four offenses to one condition, for me, is problematic.

“I have a problem with how much discretion it gives,” Gosney said. “It virtually allows law enforcement to shut down any party they want at any time. And I don’t know that we should be writing our laws around an internal policy rather than how we truly believe a policy should be enforced.”

Council President Bill Bias said the question of how to handle such things has been a struggle for council over the years.

“It is a tough balance to strike here,” Bias said. “I too see that the police seem to have a much different attitude than what we were dealing with 10 years ago. I very much appreciate this… But someway somehow we’ve got to strike a balance that when there is an out-of-control party, when there is a party house that is constantly being a nightmare… these bring down neighborhoods, bring down property values, and causes richly mixed neighborhoods to become not mixed.”

First Ward council member Kent Butler said he supports legislation that empowers law enforcement to do its job more effectively. “This becomes an issue when people are breaking the law,” Butler said. “I have no problem supporting the Police Department to do their job more efficiently and more effectively because there are consequences to our actions, all of us.”

Service-Safety Director Paula Moseley noted that each of the conditions cited in the ordinance are already illegal.

Violations listed in the ordinance for a nuisance party include underage drinking, disorderly conduct, public urination, illegal open container, using a controlled substance, public indecency, unlawful deposit of litter or refuse, unlawful pedestrian or vehicular traffic, unlawfully loud noise, “or any other conduct or condition that threatens injury, inconvenience, or alarm to persons or damage to property which is hereby declared to be an unlawful public nuisance.”

The latter “conduct or conditions” obviously aren’t necessarily against the law, unless they’re connected to one of the aforementioned legal violations.

Mayor Paul Wiehl said the amended ordinance gives the police a tool to deal with parties that are non-compliant. “This is just another tool,” he said, adding that in the future, “[council] has the right to change it.”

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