Thursday, Dec. 04, 2008

Sex in the city? Yes. Sex in the park? No.

Columbia OKs law declaring having sex in city parks, other public areas, is a crime

People are having consensual sex in Columbia’s parks — but primarily in Granby Park along the river — and a loophole in the city’s ordinance has kept the city from prosecuting them.

But City Council members approved an ordinance Wednesday that is expected to clear up any misunderstandings about what conduct is not allowed in city parks — spelling out in explicit language what is unlawful.

It is now unlawful for anyone to “knowingly or intentionally” have sex on any “streets, sidewalks, bridges, alleys, plazas, parks, driveways, parking lots, automobiles (whether moving or not), and those portions of buildings open to the general public.”

“We are not going to tolerate criminal behavior in our public places and parks,” Columbia Mayor Bob Coble said. “This gives law enforcement and the parks the tools to enforce it.”

The problem is mostly limited to Granby Park according to Allison Baker, Columbia’s director of parks and recreation. It is one of the city’s more secluded parks.

“It’s not a new issue,” Baker said. “It happened when I worked for the city of Suffolk and it happened when I worked for the city of Richmond.”

Granby Park has had problems before with men soliciting sex from other men. Over a five-day period in 1999, Columbia police arrested four men soliciting for sex at the park, which was the first portion of the Three Rivers Greenway to be built.

For years, Columbia officials would charge the offenders with disorderly conduct.

But in June, Columbia got a new chief administrative judge who had a different interpretation of the law, Coble said.

Judge Dana Turner, who was one of the city’s assistant city managers, said the disorderly conduct ordinance was meant to keep people from shouting profanities and fighting in public, not from having sex in public.

“We have made an attempt to have people charged for doing things in our park that were not acceptable, and we were not successful in court,” Baker said.

Turner declined to comment for this story.

The new ordinance does not prevent women from breastfeeding in public.

The ordinance is part of Baker’s plans to make the parks safer and more family-friendly.

About a year and a half ago, Columbia officials put in place official operating hours for city parks. In January, Baker hopes City Council members will adopt an ordinance to make the park hours official.

For Granby Park, that means hours from sunrise to sunset.

“It’s just a matter of making sure that our city and our parks are safe and that people don’t do things that they shouldn’t be doing,” Baker said.

Reach Beam at (803) 771-8405.