Wear baggy pants in one Florida town and risk a $250 fine

The city of Opa-locka boasts a thoroughfare named Sesame Street, but there’s nothing G-rated about a new law on the books in the south Florida city.

City leaders voted unanimously last week to make it legal to fine people up to $250 or sentence them to 10 hours of community service if they don’t pull up their pants, with one official saying low-slung pants are a distraction in schools and intimidates the public.

“It’s time for us now to try to teach our people how to dress,” said Commissioner Timothy Holmes.

However, the American Civil Liberties Union isn’t pleased with the ban, saying the law disproportionately penalizes “African-American youth [and] increase[s] contact between youth and law enforcement.”

One sector likely thrilled about the new ban? Parents who are sick and tired of telling their kids to wear a belt and pick up their pants. After all, what better way to enforce a standard of decency than telling your offspring, “Well, I don’t care what you wear, but there is a law.” No word if officials are mulling a similar ban on wearing hats indoors, cheek and eyebrow piercings, and Miley Cyrus.

Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

Did I do that?

Westside Middle School in Memphis had a problem that many schools face:  Students wearing extremely baggy pants.  It’s a look made popular by rap stars but it’s a look Principal Bobby White just cannot stand.  A firm believer in the idea that looking right leads to acting right and thinking right, he set out to put an end to the nonsense.

But when students continued to wear their pants hanging halfway to their knees despite a school policy forbidding it, White got creative.  Rather than send kids home or sentence them to detention, he ‘Urkeled’ them. Continue reading »

Tweet

0

Pin It

It takes a very special girl to win the heart of Steve Urkel. And Laura Winslow — as played by Kellie Williams during nine seasons of TV’s “Family Matters” — was just that sort of special girl.

Williams, a native of Forestville, Md., in the Washington D.C. area, dabbled in modeling and theater before she snagged her starring role on the ABC (and later, briefly, CBS) sitcom at the age of 13. So what has happened to her since the days of laugh tracks and listening to Urkel repeatedly ask the question, “Did I do that?” Let’s find out.

Continue reading »

Tweet

3

Pin It