EDITOR’S NOTE: Parts of this post first appeared on Phawker on August 14th, 2007
MANSFIELD, LA — “Pull ’em up or pay up.” That’s Police Chief Don English’s interpretation of a new law that took effect
in Mansfield on Sept. 15.
Anyone caught wearing sagging pants who exposes his or her underwear will be subject to a fine of up to $150 plus court costs, or face up to 15 days in jail.
Mansfield aldermen voted unanimously at today’s 4:30 p.m. meeting to enact the new law.
The law makes it illegal to found in a “state of nudity, or partial nudity, or in any indecent exposure of his or her person or undergarments, or be guilty of any indecent or lewd behavior.”
City attorney Richard Z. Johnson Jr. said he used a similar law in Delcambre as a guideline in creating Mansfield’s ordinance. Several municipalities and parish governments in Louisiana have enacted similar laws in recent months.
THE SHREVEPORT TIMES: Here Comes The Underpants Police
INQUIRER: Councilwoman Annette Lartigue of Trenton and Councilman Lincoln Green of Pleasantville set off a local fashion firestorm recently when they introduced legislation aimed at tightening indecent-exposure laws in their respective towns. Their target: young people who wear pants so low, they say, that backsides are exposed. “Where do you draw the line?” asked Lartigue, who says she’s fielded calls from ABC World News Tonight as well as The Dr. Phil Show. “That’s my question. As a parent, I refuse to be on the streets publicly looking at someone’s behind.”
ONE SENTENCE EDITORIAL: We are of two minds on this, first we think that as fashion goes, the “poopy pants” look is hardly progress, but still, fashion victimhood is NOT a crime; second, this is so dizzyingly discriminatory, so rabidly racial profiling redux, and, at heart, SO blatantly racist — we want nothing to do with any of this: the poopy pants, the fat no-neck cracker fools that pass this kind of legislation or the backwater trailer trash that it panders to, or the cops that lick their chops at the prospect of “enforcing it.”