WESTFIELD – The Westfield Police Department is seeking to increase penalties for civil citations issued for noise disturbances and for use of marijuana in public in an effort to bolster enforcement of those problems.
Sgt Eric Hall of the Community Policing Bureau appeared last night before the City Council’s Legislative & Ordinance Committee to request amending the city’s current noise ordinance by increasing the civil citation from $25 to $100.
“The ordinance is written well, but the fine is only $25,” Hall said. “Bumping it to $100 will have a more immediate impact, and hopefully it will stop some of this behavior.”
Hall said that the department receives numerous complaints associated with large parties, comprised of college-aged young adults, in downtown neighborhoods.
“The issue is that when we go to these college parties there are often 40 to 50 people,” Hall said. “In the past two weeks there have been eight noise complaints calls, parties with 75 to 200 people. We could write a citation for every person who was contributing to that noise.”
“There is discretion involved in issuing citations. We do usually issue a warning,” Hall said.
Residents hosting the parties often charge a fee, making the current $25 citation meaningless, even if every resident of that location is issued a citation.
”They don’t care that much,” Hall said. “Even if we give all six residents the citation, that is only $150, which means they purchase fewer 30-packs (of beer) the next weekend. If it was $600 in citations, that might be more impactful.”
Hall said increasing the noise ordinance civil citation to $100 would bring it into line with civil citations issued for possession of an open container in public and for persons under the age of 21 in possession of alcoholic beverages.
The city adopted the civil citation as an option to issuing criminal citations which would become part of the offenders’ criminal history
At-large Councilor James R. Adams asked if there is an appeal process for civil citations.
“They have 21 days to pay the citation or to appeal to the Clerk of Court, who would then hold a hearing and decide if the citation was justified,” Hall said.
The Police Department is also seeking to establish a $100 civil citation for public use and consumption of marijuana. Hall said that under state law possession of less than an ounce of marijuana is now a civil violation with a fine of $100, but that the state law does not address public use of the recreational drug.
“There is nothing in play under the state law, a penalty if they don’t pay the citation, it doesn’t become a criminal complaint, the state can’t take away their (driver’s) license,” Hall said. “Springfield has a $300 penalty for public consumption.”
Hall said the new state medical marijuana law restricts consumption to “a private residence” and that, under current state law police officers can write a citation for public consumption. The money collected under the state law pertaining to less than an ounce goes to the state, while a citation issued under city ordinance goes to the city.
The committee members decided to wait on acting on the Police Department’s request until the city has adopted two proposed medical marijuana ordinances, a zoning ordinance (Section 4-90) to regulate medical marijuana dispensing facilities, and a general ordinance (Chapter 8, Section 8-168) to protect the public health and which does include a civil (non-criminal) citation of $100 for the first offense and $250 citation for subsequent violations.
