Saggy pants ban was nothing butt a public embarrassment

Collinsville city leaders just made a move to get off a top-10 list: stupidest city laws.

Seriously, they regularly get calls from school civics students about why they passed an ordinance in 2011 outlawing sagging pants. The calls come because they are listed on dumblaws.com.

But no more. The Collinsville City Council on Monday repealed Ordinance 4429, which imposed a $100 fine for those whose pants were “falling more than three inches below the hips (crest of the ilium) causing exposure of the person or the person’s undergarments.”

While occasional public embarrassment over their bluenose rule might have prompted the repeal, suspicious minds think other forces were at work. Maybe the plumber’s lobby? Maybe our aging leaders were worried about their deteriorating gluteal muscles allowing 2-inch gaps to slide past the 3-inch mark, or about undone waistbands after a particularly big meal?

Collinsville police will not suddenly find themselves putting away their rulers, finding more free time to chase bank robbers and run speed traps by the ketchup bottle water tower. They never bothered enforcing the silly law to begin with. Not a single ticket in six years was written to anyone showing off their Sean Johns, Calvin Kleins or Fruit of the Looms, or to anyone going commando.

Thank goodness. That ticket would have opened up an ACLU dream case and well-founded claims of racism.

So the civics students will need to move on to other topics. Hmm... Maybe they could study the ethics of elected leaders getting freebies from city contractors or using taxpayer accounts for personal gain.

Lessons to be learned there.

This story was originally published September 15, 2017 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Saggy pants ban was nothing butt a public embarrassment."