Aclu Asks State’s Cities To Repeal Curfew Laws Group Cites Rulings Against Bellingham, San Diego

The American Civil Liberties Union is asking Washington cities with curfew laws to repeal them in the wake of a state Court of Appeals decision that threw out Bellingham’s statute.

“We intend to file any lawsuit that is appropriate,” the ACLU’s legislative director in Washington, Gerard Sheehan, said Thursday.

In letters sent to most of the 43 communities that have such laws, the ACLU cites the Bellingham ruling and a similar ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that found curfew laws in San Diego unconstitutional.

“The court rulings against the Bellingham and San Diego curfews … apply to Yakima,” according to the letter addressed to Yakima Mayor Lynn Buchanan.

“All these legal challenges make it incumbent upon Yakima to avoid the prospect of time-consuming, expensive litigation, and to repeal its unconstitutional curfew ordinance.”

But Yakima City Prosecutor Jeff West said the city’s curfew ordinance likely would withstand a legal challenge. He said it was drafted to mirror a Dallas, Texas, curfew law that has been upheld in federal court.

Although Yakima city officials are still reviewing the San Diego decision, West said the issues that killed the Bellingham curfew are covered in Yakima’s laws.

“I think we’ve got a very strong case,” West said. “Not bulletproof; nothing ever is.”

Thirty letters demanding repeal of curfew laws have been sent to cities across the state,” Sheehan said. The ACLU plans to contact all 43 Washington cities with curfew laws, which range from metropolitan Tacoma to tiny Tekoa, population 750.

The intent of the letters is to educate, to urge repeal of the laws and to advise the cities of possible litigation, he said.

“We are putting cities (with curfew ordinances) on notice,” Sheehan said. “We are urging them to do the right thing and repeal their ordinances.”

The ACLU will give cities a couple of months to make a decision, he said.

The letter was coolly received in Toppenish, which in 1985 became the first community in the state to adopt a nighttime teen curfew and two years ago extended the law into daylight hours.

“It’s a typical ACLU heavy-handed tactic,” said Toppenish City Manager Jim Southworth.

City attorneys for Pasco and Prosser are reviewing the Bellingham case, but had not yet heard from the ACLU.

Grandview and Sunnyside have.

“This looks like the first step,” Grandview City Supervisor Jim Sewell said.

“We are in a wait-and-see research mode,” Sunnyside City Attorney Mark Klunkler said. “We don’t have any plans to appeal.”