Issue date: 4/8/08 Section: City

Evanston teenagers might soon have to get off city streets an hour earlier after the City Council's Human Services Committee unanimously approved an ordinance to reduce the curfew for youth under the age of 17 Monday night.

The ordinance, presented to the committee by Ald. Ann Rainey (8th), was written in response to a March 22 change in Chicago's curfew, which made the time when kids can't be on the streets a half an hour earlier.

The council will decide on the ordinance during its April 28 meeting.

The new Chicago curfew hours begin at 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 10 p.m. the rest of the week. Both times are an hour earlier than Evanston's each night. The curfew ends at 6 a.m. every night for both cities.

"I'm asking you to simply make our curfew ordinance comparable to the city of Chicago," Rainey told the committee. "Nothing more radical than that."

Rainey and other aldermen are concerned that a curfew discrepancy between the two cities could cause delinquent Chicago teens to cross into Evanston after the Chicago curfew passes.

"People can step across the street and not be in violation of the curfew," Rainey said at the meeting. "That creates a tremendous problem for the south end of town."

Police have not noticed an impact from the discrepancy in curfews yet, said Cmdr. Thomas Guenther of the Evanston Police Department.

"They'll probably be some bleed-over, but I don't know how statistically significant that will be," Guenther said. "It's too early to tell."

But Rainey urged the committee, which considered putting off the vote until its next meeting, to act quickly. Calling the ordinance "really urgent," she pointed to an incident that happened Saturday night, when a large number of kids were seen yelling at each other in south Evanston.

Still, the ordinance will not come before the council at Tuesday's meeting because it was not put on the agenda, said Ald. Steven Bernstein (4th), the head of the committee.

Continued...

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