FORT LORAMIE — Village residents were given the opportunity to voice their opinions regarding the possible implementation of a village-wide curfew for minors during the Fort Loramie Village Council meeting Monday, Feb. 26.

Mayor Randy Ahlers began the meeting, which was held at Fort Loramie Senior/Junior High School, by introducing the issue at hand and briefly explaining the reasoning behind this as a considered resolution.

“We’ll just start with some of the reasons the council is even considering (a curfew),” Ahlers said. “We’ve had multiple complaints of juveniles knocking on windows, looking in windows, ringing doorbells, destroying personal property, yelling and making noise late at night, and (Police Chief Nate Brown) has some concerns about the safety of the children themselves.”

Brown, in attendance, added not only are the juvenile-related issues being reported throughout the village, but the police and rescue responders have also reported an influx of young residents being out late at night and impeding upon their ability to respond to emergency calls by running across the streets, putting themselves and others at risk.

Ahlers then opened the floor for discussion. There were about 40 people in attendance, 19 of whom signed up to speak just prior to the commencement of the meeting.

Resident Gary Meyer said he and his wife have been dealing with nuisances on a regular basis, including doorbell ditching and large groups of kids “roaming the streets at all hours.”

“This basically started two and a half years ago for us,” he said. “It got so bad that my wife could not sit and watch TV without anticipating when it’s going to happen or if it’s going to happen. It just made her so nervous all day.

“After a function at school, or if they didn’t have school the next day, you could almost count on something happening,” Meyer continued. “We have no kids in the school system anymore. We’re up in our years; I don’t think people in our (age) group should have to worry about things like that.”

Mike Simon, another resident in attendance, said he and his family has dealt with these issues frequently for the past 17 years.

“We’ve had juveniles peeking in my, at the time, two-year-old daughter’s bedroom,” Simon said. “We’ve had property damage. They ring my doorbell at 2:30 in the morning. I’ve been assaulted and verbally attacked by kids.

“Will (a curfew) prevent it from happening? No. Will it deter it? Yes. It will give our police reason to confront a kid walking around. No 13, 14, 15-year-old kid needs to be out at midnight. No good is (coming) from that. It’s a small percentage (of kids), but it’s enough that it has upset me beyond belief.”

Some residents at the meeting expressed their reservations about the adoption of a village-wide curfew.

Lisa Boerger posed questions about whether or not there will be exceptions to the rule for school events.

“I have a child that is a water boy,” she said. “What if the bus comes home and it’s late — past curfew — and he has to walk home? Is he going to get stopped and, if so, is he going to be charged with something?”

Ahlers responded to Boerger by saying there would most likely be exceptions for things like school and church activities, and that police would use their discretion to determine how to handle each situation.

“I would think if your boy’s coming from school as a water boy, (the police) would let him walk home or drive him home.”

Resident Ron Drees expressed his concern that the implementation of a curfew casts an unsavory shadow on a town. He also stressed that, in his opinion, if the village is going to apply new laws, officials should be able to document positive change from those new rules.

“If I’m looking to move into a town and they’ve got a curfew, I’m (wondering) what they’ve got going on that they need to have a curfew,” Drees said. “If you do implement it, are you planning on then measuring the success, and if it’s not successful, do we keep it in place?”

Ahlers responded by saying he spoke with the mayor of Sidney, who said posing a city-wide curfew had an overall positive affect on the community, with complaints of juvenile offenses lowering substantially.

If a curfew were to be put in place in Fort Loramie, the police chief would give monthly reports to village council regarding its overall effectiveness, Ahlers said.

Bill Zimmerman Jr., assistant prosecuting attorney for Shelby County, was in attendance Monday and addressed concerns regarding what would happen to minors who were stopped by police for being out past curfew.

“If we did implement a curfew, it would be an unruly charge for the individual, which is a non-jail-able offense,” Zimmerman said. “It would just be a fine and court cost in that situation.”

Zimmerman added that if a minor were to be found damaging property or unlawfully intruding on someone’s property, harsher charges may be additionally imposed.

“The curfew would certainly give us another tool in our belt,” Brown said of the village police. “Some of our problem is, you can’t always catch the kids doing this. If you don’t see them doing it, there’s nothing we can do. At least if they’re out and there’s a curfew, we have something. We can send them home.”

The second bit of business discussed at Monday’s meeting was consideration of an ordinance to amend the City Income Tax Code to adopt sections of the Ohio Revised Code. An emergency was declared and council passed the ordinance.

Council then entered into executive session to discuss the sale of land, after which the meeting was adjourned.