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City council adopts curfew ordinances setting 11 p.m. citywide curfew for unaccompanied minors, 9 p.m. in downtown district
Summary
Council passed two curfew ordinances: a citywide 11 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors and a 9 p.m. curfew for the Central Business District; exceptions include work and ticketed events. Enforcement approach and locations for temporary placement were described but vote tallies were not provided in the meeting transcript.
City council members said they passed two new curfew ordinances that set an 11 p.m. curfew for unaccompanied minors citywide and a 9 p.m. curfew for the Central Business District, with exceptions for work, ticketed events and other defined circumstances.
Council member Johnson (as introduced in the meeting) described the ordinances as safety measures intended to reduce young people’s exposure to late-night risks while emphasizing the council’s intent to avoid criminalizing youth. He said the council established a special extended-curfew district covering the downtown Central Business District with an earlier 9 p.m. cutoff and a citywide 11 p.m. cutoff for other unaccompanied minors.
Officials said the curfew is already in place by ordinance passage and that enforcement is intended to be guided by discretion: officers will exercise judgment and will not enforce curfew in cases such as ticketed school events or proms. Council members noted that a first curfew violation prompts a warning to the youth and that repeated violations can lead to parent accountability provisions; one council member said a second violation could result in a minor misdemeanor charge for the parent under the ordinance’s enforcement scheme.
Council members said that when youth are taken into custody for curfew violations they will be brought to community-based sites — the meeting cited 7 Hills Neighborhood Houses as an example — where staff will check on the youth’s welfare, ask about employment or school obligations and provide referral resources. Officials said the Cincinnati Police Department will exercise discretion for large school events and that the goal is positive interactions between police and young people.
Ending: Council members urged parents to know children’s whereabouts and stressed that the policy aims to protect youth and provide resources, not to criminalize them. The transcript does not include vote tallies or mover/second names for the ordinances.
