THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020212
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Bill Reed
LENGTH: 59 lines
Well it certainly is comforting to know that the late-night takeover of the resort strip by hordes of punks is really only '90s-style youthful high jinks. Just good-natured juvenile horseplay, by golly.
Really, it's only offensive to those old fuddy-duddies from Ohio, Pennsylvania, upstate New York and Richmond, who arrive with their families to spend a few days in Virginia Beach inns or rental cottages, have a relaxing meal or two at local restaurants and drop a few bucks at local shops.
And it's really only the problem of local fuddy-duddies who want to saunter casually down Atlantic Avenue at night, take a cooling bike ride on the Boardwalk or have a nightcap at a resort tavern without getting offended, bumped, threatened and cussed. They just ain't hip to what's happenin', dude.
They need to get with the program. So the wife and kids hear passing punks - male and female - use the F-word and the MF-word at the top of their lungs on the crowded Oceanfront streets or the Boardwalk. Or they get hassled by groups of youths walking four and five abreast down the Atlantic Avenue sidewalk or the Boardwalk. This is the real world, man. Those kids of yours have to get educated to the facts of life sometime. Right?
This, basically, is the reaction of city officials to reports that late night behavior on the strip is getting out of hand and will - if it continues unabated - put a serious hurt on the resort economy.
Here are some samples:
``From my personal view,'' Deputy City Manager Oral Lambert was quoted as saying in the July 28 edition of The Virginian-Pilot, ``there is a generational values gap. There are some things younger people do that older people find offensive that are really not meant to be offensive. It's just accepted in their circle.''
``We cannot prosecute people for using the F-word,'' City Attorney Leslie L. Lilley said in the same story. ``. . . Only if the intent is to promote a confrontation, if the intent is to raise it to the level of fighting words.''
Nor, Lilley said, can police disperse a crowd, merely because merchants or tourists are troubled by it. ``There is the right of free assembly,'' he said. ``The right of free assembly cannot be made illegal simply because it may be annoying to some persons.''
O-o-OK! How about the rights of people who aren't part of that free assembly to go about their business on city streets without being subjected to objectionable behavior, language and noise? They don't count? They don't have rights, too?
Well, somebody at City Hall is missing the point by a Texas mile.
The point is: everybody - repeat, everybody, regardless of race, color or creed - has to adhere to certain standards of behavior that don't offend, threaten or endanger fellow human beings who happen to be in close proximity. Otherwise, you have anarchy.
The fact that these kinds of shenanigans occur in other resorts around the country, as Lambert points out, doesn't justify them happening here in Virginia Beach.
Everybody is free to come to the Oceanfront to have a good time. That's what it's here for. But for everybody to have that good time, civility and restraint are absolute musts.
And city officials can't shirk their responsibility to see that peace and tranquillity do reign on city streets. That's what they get paid for. by CNB