Dallas official wants city ban on baggy pants
By JAMIE STENGLE
Associated Press
DALLAS A Dallas man has had it with baggy pants that overexpose, so he wants the City Council to look into a ban on wearing the oversized trousers that often slip so low as to show underwear.
Ron Price, a Dallas school board member, has asked the City Council to look at strengthening the law to give citations to those who expose their underwear.
I think its disrespectful, its dishonorable and its disgusting, said Price, who made the recommendation last week to the City Council. I have no problem with the top of your Hanes label being shown. My problem is when grown men walk about the city with pants below their buttocks.
Council members have asked the city attorney to look into the issue. City Attorney Tom Perkins said this week hes investigating the legalities and will report back to the council.
But experts say that such a law might not hold up, so to speak.
It would be too vague, said Robert Jarvis, constitutional law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He said that for a criminal law to be constitutional, a person of average intelligence must know whats being prohibited.
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Whos to say how baggy pants can be before theyre baggy pants, he said. Theres just no way to regulate these things.
Some Dallas City Council members are raising concerns about police attention being diverted to fashion instead of crime.
It doesnt make a lot of sense to me that we are discussing banning baggy pants we have important crime and public safety issues to be concerned with, said council member Angela Hunt.
Council member Gary Griffith said he does not favor taking policemen and women off patrol to track down and chase young people on how theyre dressing. Thats not the right use of our police force.
Such proposals havent made it too far in recent years. In Virginia, the Senate dropped a bill last year the would have fined those with pants so low their underwear was exposed. A similar bill from a Louisiana state representative failed to pass in 2004. And such proposals havent faired well at the city level either.
This is one of those areas where the legal battles have been fought, and we know what the answer is, Jarvis said.
Lisa Graybill, legal director ACLU of Texas, called such a ban a distraction.
Its certainly difficult for me to imagine that it would stand up, she said.
Price said the underwear issue came up after he took some elderly women to dinner and a group of men walked by with their pants so low their underwear was on display
I just feel that its so disrespectful to our senior citizens, especially to women..., he said.
He said that in the Dallas school district, most schools require students to wear uniforms and students also must wear belts and tuck in their shirts.
In the city its a different deal, he said. Im asking the city to do something about it. If the city decides law enforcement, so be it.
School districts have a fairly wide discretion to set dress codes, said Naomi Gittins, staff attorney at the National School Boards Association.
For school districts, a dress code rule must be somehow related to the education mission. For instance, a district could show that in their area baggy pants are associated with gang membership and ban such apparel, she said.
Baggy, drooping pants got their fashion start with hip hop music, and then mainstream designers started producing them, said Mary Ruppert, assistant professor of fashion at Stephens College in Columbia, Mo.
A recent trip to a North Dallas mall showed lots of super baggy pants, but they were paired with long T-shirts so no underwear was evident.
Trip Dalrymple, 18, of Dallas, wore extremely loose pants, but his shirt was also very long. He said that if someones look includes showing their underwear, its just a matter of style, not something that should be banned.
Besides, he said, he wouldnt want to get fined if his pants slipped.
Kendall Beck, 26, of Dallas, was wearing low pants, but his shirt was also long and tucked in. He said that he agreed with the proposal that people should be fined for showing their underwear.
Youve got to be presentable, he said. Besides, showing underwear with super baggy pants is a look thats played out, he said.
Ruppert, for one, agrees.
She said the current fashion pendulum is swinging heavily in another direction this fall: super skinny pants for both men and women.
It is a radical jump this season, very thin leggings, Ruppert said.
