Council amends disorderly conduct draft, moves changes to Wednesday agenda

Marietta council members spent substantial time at an agenda work session debating revisions to a proposed amendment to the city's disorderly conduct ordinance, voting to amend the draft's obstruction language and add the word "illegal" to several gambling-related provisions before moving the revised draft to Wednesday's full council meeting.

Council members said the revisions aim to give police clearer, constitutionally defensible language for misdemeanor enforcement while avoiding overly broad wording that could be struck down in court. The council voted to amend the draft to replace or narrow the term "violent" obstruction and to use wording such as "substantially obstruct or interfere" in key subsections; the body also voted to insert the word "illegal" before references to gaming/gambling where appropriate. The amended ordinance will return to the full council on Wednesday for further consideration.

Why it matters: Council members and legal advisers said precision matters because vague obstruction statutes have been challenged in court. Several council members said they want to avoid criminalizing routine, nonviolent acts (for example, stepping in to ask questions) while preserving the police's ability to address acts that genuinely impede a lawful activity. At least one council member warned of the risk of being the first jurisdiction to test novel language in court.

Members debated several draft provisions. Police leadership urged replacing "violent" with narrower qualifiers such as "physical" or the four-word construction used elsewhere in the draft: "substantially obstruct or interfere." At one point a speaker offered a motion to amend subsection D to read "substantially obstruct or interfere with another person's pursuit of lawful occupation, with the intent to interfere," and council members discussed whether to require proof of intent. Some members said intent could be necessary to avoid constitutional overbreadth; others said leaving out intent helps officers intervene early to prevent escalation.

Council members also discussed the draft's treatment of gaming and gambling. Because some coin-operated amusement machines and similar devices are regulated and preempted by state law, the council agreed to clarify local language to target "illegal" gaming or gambling rather than broad references to "gaming" that could be read to encompass lawful activities (for example, state-authorized lottery devices and regulated coin-operated amusement machines).

The procedural outcome: The council voted on at least two amendments to the draft and carried motions to (1) amend the obstruction language to the "substantially obstruct or interfere" formulation and to include intent language as discussed, (2) insert "illegal" before gaming/gambling language in the affected subsections, and (3) advance the amended ordinance to the Wednesday full council agenda for further consideration and proofreading corrections. Speakers asked staff to correct scrivener's errors before the next posting.

What remained open: Council members recorded continuing concerns about one subsection (referred to as "M" in the packet) that some said may attempt to "fix" a state statute'level constitutional problem; a council member asked whether the city should be the first to test that approach in court. Staff and council agreed to leave that section for additional review rather than remove it immediately.

Quotes in the record included a law enforcement representative who said, "I would go with physical," when discussing replacing the word "violent" in obstruction language. An attorney advising the council noted that some statutes have been struck down for being overbroad and observed that adding intent language can affect constitutional analysis.

Next steps: The amended draft will appear on the Wednesday full council agenda; staff were directed to proofread the document and post the revised draft online ahead of that meeting.