Cuss, spit at your own risk in Sarasota

Enforcement of unusual laws adds to the city's PR woes.

By MIKE DONILA, Times Staff Writer
Published November 11, 2007

SARASOTA - Sarasota is known for its theater district and arts festivals. It's not uncommon to hear the city called trendy and progressive.

But the city's taken a few public relations hits recently.

Last year, homeless advocates designated this waterfront community as one of the "meanest cities" in the country.

And now the city police have created a local stir by busting residents for cussing in public and spitting on the street.

The incidents have left some wondering if it's time to change the rules.

"Wow, that's pretty much the norm around here," said Marie Leach, 58, while taking a stroll at Payne Park, the site where a man was arrested for cussing.

Opponents accuse the police of applying the laws selectively and illegally, targeting certain people. Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union say the charges are fruitless and rarely upheld in court.

Police describe the old laws -- spitting and cussing -- as tools they can use to uncover bigger crimes. Stop a guy for spitting, maybe you'll find something else, they say.

Sarasota police spokesman Jay Frank said they don't single out anyone but lawbreakers.

"It doesn't matter who you are," Frank said. "We have a zero tolerance to quality-of-life issues."

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About an hour south of Tampa, Sarasota boasts beaches, fine dining, shopping and museums. CNN/Money Magazine in 2003 named Sarasota -- population 55,000 -- as "America's best small city" and in 2002 designated it as one of the nation's top eight "best places to retire."

But last year the National Coalition for the Homeless named it the "meanest city in the country" after officials put into place a law that essentially bans the homeless from sleeping outside. If caught, they are given the option of staying at the 210-bed Salvation Army shelter or, if they refuse, the jail.

Then came the spitting and cussing incidents.

- On Oct. 6, police accused Christopher Haupt, 45, of drinking vodka at the grand opening of $9-million Payne Park. After his arrest, Haupt dropped the F-bomb in front of about 20 children, according to the police report. They then charged him with cursing in front of minors.

- About 11 p.m. on Sept. 18, police arrested Terrell Weeks, 29, when he spat on the ground near the seedier part of downtown. Police took Weeks and his bike into custody. (The charge, however, is probably the least of Weeks' worries. He's racked up more than 30 arrests in his lifetime, including charges for drugs, probation violation, trespassing and battery.)

-  On Sept. 9, John Taylor, 22, wasn't too far from where Weeks was when he, too, spit on the ground during a conversation with police. Officers charged him with spitting and also possession of crack cocaine, which was found where he previously had been standing.

The municipal violations carry up to 60 days in jail. None of the men could be reached for comment.

The only other recent spitting charge, police say, occurred in 2005, when a 10-year-old boy "blatantly and intentionally" spat on the street outside a downtown movie theater, according to the police report. Officers at the time were writing him up for possession of tobacco products.

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Opinions here are mixed about the level of enforcement.

Many of the older residents interviewed by the Times say police should go after spitters and cussers. Younger folks, though, say the officers probably don't have anything better to do.

"I don't want to hear about people cussing in the park," said longtime resident Leach. "That's a no-no. And spitting? That's just plain disgusting."

"There's got to be other crimes they can be chasing," said Betsy Prunty, 30, a manager for Outback Steakhouse, who was shopping in downtown last week.

Frank, the police spokesman, pointed to the declining crime rate as evidence that the department spends its time wisely. Only two murders remain unsolved in the past 25 years, he said.

"Those three spitting cases, that's all that we've had in the past 10 years. But they just came at once, so they're getting attention," Frank said, adding that officers "use their own discretion" when making such arrests.

Still, others feel the city's reputation could plummet if police keep arresting spitters.

"If you use it against minorities, then they won't want to come here," said Adam Tebrugge, a city assistant public defender. "They'll say: 'Don't go there, you'll get arrested for being black.'"

But others haven't quite hit the panic buttons.

"Admittedly, some of the rules are woefully archaic," said city attorney Bob Fournier. "... I don't think anyone seriously advocates using the ordinances to the fullest extent possible."

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That was good news for former Largo City Manager Steve Stanton, who earlier this year interviewed for the equivalent Sarasota job -- in a skirt.

Stanton, who was fired from the Largo job after announcing he wanted to become a woman named Susan, wasn't arrested. But he could have been, according to Sarasota's municipal code book. The chapter called "Offenses Against Public Morals" makes it illegal for a man to wear a dress in the city.

"Talk about a silly law," said Christine Meeker Lange, a spokeswoman for the Ringling College of Art and Design, which has held galas that included female impersonators. "I'd say that infringes on a person's right to freedom of expression."

Police say they don't have plans to arrest men wearing dresses, or skirts, but the law is still on the books.

Sarasota isn't the only place with a few curious rules, nor the first to enforce them.

Two Englishmen a few years ago tried to break as many oddball laws as they could and published the book You Can Get Arrested for That: 2 Guys, 25 Dumb Laws, 1 Absurd American Crime Spree.

During their trek, they learned that it's illegal to drink beer out of a bucket on a St. Louis sidewalk, play cards with an American Indian in Globe, Ariz., catch a fish with a lasso in Tennessee, and let a rat leave a docked ship in Tampa Bay.

The authors were lucky. They didn't get caught.

But others have.

A jury convicted a Michigan man in 1998 under a 100-year-old cussing law, sentencing him to community service. And a Pennsylvania woman last month pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct after a patrolman arrested her for cussing at her toilet and a neighbor, who was also an officer.

"We represent cussers all the time," Mary Catherine Roper, staff attorney with Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union, which is overseeing the woman's case. "This will get thrown out."

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Commissioner Ken Shelin says city leaders have "so much on their plate" that "you'd have to make it a project" to go through the code book, weeding out the older laws that may not belong.

But, he and the city's vice mayor say, it's probably time to do just that.

"We're going to have to look at all of it," said Vice Mayor Kelly Kirschner, adding that he wasn't aware that a man in Sarasota can't wear a dress until it was pointed out to him by a Times reporter.

He said in the upcoming weeks he's going to ask fellow commissioners about taking some of "the sillier rules off the books."

"The gentleman in the park, drinking the gut-rotter, well he should have been removed," Kirschner said. "But the others who were spitting, that seems like some type of profiling. ... I'm sure you or me spit when we're out playing basketball or something."

Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this story.

City Population Murder/ Rape Burglary

Manslaughter

Sarasota 54,617 4 23 847

St. Petersburg 253,280 21 112 3,466

Tampa 331,487 25 133 4,451

[Last modified November 10, 2007, 21:54:44]