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BAGGY BRITCHES FOCUS OF PROPOSAL

By AmyJo Brown/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Thursday, August 30, 2007 11:38 AM CDT

Derwood Smith doesn’t think the fashion of baggy pants — the kind that hang low enough to expose the boxers, briefs or thongs underneath — is going out of style fast enough.

So, to help speed the process, the 74-year-old Pine Bluff alderman is proposing the city fine anyone with the look $200, plus court costs.

“Wait, what? ... Let me get this straight,” said 19-year-old Omar Johnson Wednesday afternoon inside Hibbett’s Sports at The Pines mall.

Johnson, a student at the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff, took a copy of the proposed city ordinance recently drafted by Smith and read it through.

As he read, he nodded his head.

“I agree with all this stuff,” said the neatly dressed Johnson.

The proposed ordinance, which will come up for discussion at the City Council meeting Tuesday, says that the display of undergarments creates an unnecessary distraction and “an offensive visual condition to others.” It also says that those who wear the style risk personal injury from tripping over their clothes.

Smith said he proposed the law because he heard other cities were doing it — Atlanta, along with Alexandria and Shreveport, La., are a few of the places with similar proposals right now — and he said he thinks people who show their underwear in public are making the city look bad, potentially impacting the way businesses touring the area look at the workforce.

“We’ve got a group of guys, white and black, who want to wear their pants below the behind,” he said. “It’s just not a good picture.”

He dismissed the idea that the style is a fashion statement, a form of expression.

“That’s not wearing clothes,” Smith said. “That’s just hanging them on you.”

The law, as he has proposed it, would make it illegal for any person to appear in public “attired in such a manner as to purposely or knowingly expose all or part of his or her underwear or undergarments,” which are defined as men’s briefs, long johns, boxers, women’s panties, briefs, bras and thongs — as well as any other item of attire designed as underwear and intended to be worn next to the skin while fully covered by other clothing.

People could also get in trouble if they “knowingly or recklessly expose (their) sex organs.”

The ordinance makes exceptions for people performing in the theater or in other artistic performances where an audience is present by choice.

It also excludes legal exotic dancing.

But Rita Sklar, the executive director of the Arkansas American Civil Liberties Union, isn’t buying it. The proposed ordinance is written so broadly, she said, it would be ripe for a lawsuit.

“It’s breathtaking,” Sklar said. “It would not withstand a constitutional challenge.”

Smith isn’t worried. If it passes great, he said. If not? He tried. Point made.

“It’s just a matter of decency,” he said. “No one should be forced to look at anything like that.”

Johnson, the 19-year-old at the mall, agreed.

The $200 fine is steep, he said. But he’ll support the idea.

“You should present yourself in a good manner,” Johnson said.

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