After recent well publicized events regarding the safety of juveniles in our shore communities, the Margate City Police Department is taking a more proactive approach to dealing with the many issues that the large groups of unsupervised juveniles pose.
From Margate PD:
It is the goal of the Margate City Police Department to prevent some of the issues other shore towns have experienced this summer season.
In the past, MCPD has been able to keep an eye on the crowds with increased manpower and additional patrols, but like in towns up and down the coast, we are pushed to our limit and with the recent highly publicized incidents, we are asking parents to be responsible for the actions of their underage and unsupervised children.
Enforcement of ordinance 117-4 (Parental Responsibility) will take place between 10PM and 6AM any time when officers observe a juvenile unsupervised and engaging in any behavior that is unlawful, puts their safety at risk, or if they ignore lawful commands from officers attempting to keep them safe.
In these cases, the juveniles will be transported back to our station and a responsible adult will be called in to take custody of the child and a summons will be issued to the parent.
If the situation warrants, the juvenile will be additionally charged with whatever underlying offense prompted the police action.
We, and other police departments and public officials in the state, have asked parents to better supervise their children over the past few years.
To date, those calls have been met with limited, or no, success leading us to take this action to ensure the safety of those in the community.
For the text of the ordinance: https://ecode360.com/10323345#10323340
Convert the gas station lot for a teenage community center.
You can’t possibly be serious. The LAST thing teenagers want to do or go to a community center.
Not a bad idea. I could see the pros and the cons of this and why people would be for it and why people would be against it.
I would be in favor of it to get the kids out of the house to properly interact with other kids in a safe environment.
I could see some televisions in there and pool tables, the uno card games, etc., etc.
And charging stations for those cell phones..lol…
I think there would need to be a parks and recreation person there also to monitor it along maybe cameras and appropriate hours of operation.
During the summer months, maybe less kids will hang out around the local Wawa, and they can also hang out here which will reduce the amount of kids at the local Wawa.
And they can walk back and forth between the two locations which those summer residents will most likely complain about.
Back in the day all these kids would be working part time jobs through out Margate at night. No problem with kids getting into trouble then. The parents have made these new generation pampered and lazy. Moved out of margate and never been happier.
Fine and start arresting the parents. Maybe they’ll get of their a## and so something instead of hanging around bars and restaurants. That’ll change quickly.
Hey, I get it.
Being a parent is a tough life calling but it is your most important life calling if chose to have a child/children.
I raised a couple of children and they turned out well.
That being said, I know the challenges and pride of raising children to become young adults.
Please raise good children for their sake and the community’s sake.