Tuesday’s open line


In the borough of Edgewood, an eastern suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I spent some of my [de]formative years, we had a 10:00 p.m. curfew for youths under sixteen, seven days a week. It was strictly enforced. (A friend once told me that as a young man her father worked nights in neighboring Wilkinsburg. Walking home, the Edgewood cops would pick him up at the Wilkinsburg line and drop him off at the Swissvale line. Strict.)

If you got caught, you were taken down to the police station, your name, address, and vital statistics were put on file, your parents were called, and they had to come and pick you up. Life became unpleasant very quickly. Don’t ask me how I know.

Of course, Edgewood had something we don’t have: an upper middle-class tax base. Imagine three police cars on a shift to cover an area less than a square mile with a median income large enough to make you think I was giving it to you in lira.

Is Youth Protection Ordinance enforceable given our resources? Let us know what you think on today’s open line.