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Fox River Grove board agrees to place draft retail-theft ordinance — $250 ticket option — on next agenda
Summary
Chief Waitrovich told trustees that officers currently must choose between releasing suspects or charging misdemeanors/felonies and urged a code change to allow a $250 ordinance ticket for retail theft; the board agreed to place the draft ordinance on the next agenda.
Chief Waitrovich told the Village Board that when responding to retail-theft incidents, officers currently face a limited set of enforcement options: release the offender or bring misdemeanor or felony charges. He asked the board to support an update to the Village Code of Ordinances to allow police officers to issue ordinance violation tickets as an intermediate enforcement tool.
"The new ordinance calls for a $250 fine," Chief Waitrovich said. The draft ordinance would create a municipal-citation alternative that officers could issue instead of pursuing criminal charges in certain property-theft cases.
Trustees discussed the draft and the general consensus of the board was to place the ordinance on the next meeting agenda for approval as written. No vote to adopt the ordinance took place at this meeting; the item will return for formal consideration at a future meeting.
Supporters of the change argued it would give officers more enforcement flexibility and potentially spare low-level offenders from felony or misdemeanor records; the board did not have testimony or packet materials at the meeting that further specified enforcement thresholds, administrative procedures or appeals. Any formal adoption would require the board to vote on the ordinance at a future meeting.
