It shall be unlawful for any person to willfully obstruct or hinder the free passage of persons passing along or by any public street, sidewalk or highway within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City or to willfully disturb any neighborhood within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City by loud and unseemly noises, or to profanely curse and swear or use obscene language upon or near any such street, sidewalk, or highway.
[HISTORY: Adopted by the Mayor and Council of the Town of Chesapeake City 11-8-1976 as Art. 11 of the 1976 Code. Amendments noted where applicable.]
[Amended on 5-9-1980]
It shall be unlawful for any person to act in a disorderly manner to the disturbance of the public peace or to possess an open container of alcoholic beverage upon any public street, sidewalk, highway, parking lot, private or public, or at any place of public worship or public resort or amusement within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City.
[Added 1-9-2023 by Ord. No. 2022-007]
A.
Except as provided in this section, it shall be unlawful for any person to consume any alcoholic beverage or beverages upon any of the public streets, avenues, alleys, sidewalks, and parks or in vehicles upon any of the public streets, avenues, alleys, or parks within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City.
B.
The Mayor and Town Council of the Town of Chesapeake City shall regulate via resolution the possession and consumption of alcohol from time to time, in a specific mapped area, during the hours of any permitted event or special gathering so long as all appropriate and required licenses and approvals are obtained from the Cecil County Board of License Commissioners and any other state or county governmental authority for such sale and all requirements of such licenses are followed. It shall be unlawful for vendors and/or participants to sell, and for individuals to purchase, possess and/or consume, any alcoholic beverage upon the public property, roads and highways, outside of the mapped area, of the Town of Chesapeake City.
C.
A violation of this section shall be a municipal infraction punishable by a fine in the amount of $100. Each instance shall constitute a separate offense.
It shall be unlawful for any person to enter uninvited upon the lands or premises of any other person, firm or corporation, whether such person be the owner or lessee of said land or premises, and to willfully act in a disorderly manner by making loud and unseemly noises or by profanely cursing or swearing or using vulgar or obscene language or by being under the influence of intoxicating liquors or narcotics while thereon.
It shall be unlawful for any person to indecently, improperly or offensively use the streets, highways, sidewalks, alleys or parking lots within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City as toilet facilities or to indecently expose his or her person thereon.
No person without lawful authority shall enter or attempt to enter a private dwelling against the will of the lawful occupant thereof, or being therein without lawful authority to remain, shall refuse to quit the same on the demand of the lawful occupant thereof.
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons within the Town limits to keep or maintain a house of ill fame or assignation, resorted to for the purpose of prostitution or lewdness, and it shall be unlawful for any person to visit such house of ill fame for immoral purposes.
Whoever unlawfully assaults or threatens another in a menacing manner shall upon conviction be subject to penalties as hereinafter provided.
It shall be unlawful for any person, except law enforcement officers in the exercise of their official duties, to discharge and shoot off any gun, pistol, air rifle (including the weapon commonly known as a BB gun), or other firearm within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City. Any person violating the provisions of this section shall upon conviction be subject to the penalties as hereinafter provided.
[Added 3-9-1981]
A.
Any person who shall wear or carry any BB gun, air gun, gas-operated gun, or spring gun, whether concealed or open, upon or about his person, and any person who shall knowingly transport any BB gun, air gun, gas-operated gun, or spring gun, whether concealed or open, in any vehicle travelling upon the public roads or upon roads or parking lots generally used by the public in this Town shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
B.
Exceptions. Nothing in this section shall prevent the wearing, carrying, or transporting of any BB gun, air gun, gas-operated gun, or spring gun under the following circumstances:
(1)
Within the person's own domicile.
(2)
On private property under circumstances where such gun can be fired, discharged or operated in such a manner as not to endanger person or property and also in such a manner as to prevent a projectile from traversing the grounds or space outside the limits of such private property or premises.
(3)
The carrying of such gun by a person or in a vehicle while transporting the same to or from the place of legal purchase or sale, or to or from any bona fide repair shop, or to or from any range, gallery, or area where shooting of such gun is permitted by law so long as the gun is unloaded and properly cased.
A.
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to purposely remove or in any manner deface any sign or to damage in any manner any public property belonging wholly or in part to the Town of Chesapeake City.
B.
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to, at any time or in any manner, deface, injure or remove any tree, fence, gate, railing, porch, building, or other structure upon public land, by writing, cutting, or in any other manner, within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City.
C.
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to willfully break any streetlights within the corporate limits of the Town or cut or break any streetlight posts, parking signs, traffic signs or traffic signal device in said Town.
A.
It shall be unlawful for any person to congregate with another or others in a group in, on, or about any street, sidewalk, highway, parking lot, or other public place in the Town, and the said group is obstructing the free passage of other persons; or breaching the peace by making loud and unseemly noises; or participating in boisterous conduct; or congregating for the purpose of causing, provoking, or engaging in a fight or brawl; or endangering lawful pursuits of another by acts of violence, angry threats, or abusive conduct; or congregating for any unlawful purpose.
B.
It shall be unlawful for any person to congregate with another or others in, on, or about any street, sidewalk, highway, parking lot, or other public place and refuse or fail to clear such public place, to move on, or to disperse when ordered to do so by a police officer or other lawful authority.
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to throw, deposit, or allow to be deposited upon any street, alley or public area any glass bottles, glass, nails, wires, cans, dirt or other trash.
It shall be unlawful for any person or persons to encumber, obstruct or in any manner interfere with free and uninterrupted use of the public streets or alleys of the Town by leaving any goods, wares or building materials thereon.
Each property owner shall be required to maintain in good repair all driveways and sidewalks on his property and which in turn are on a public easement. If the Town Council finds that such repairs are not made, it shall notify the owners of abutting property in writing as to the nature of the corrective action required. If, at the end of 30 days, the property owners involved have not taken corrective action, the Town Council may authorize improvements under the procedure outlined in Section 72 of the Charter for the Town of Chesapeake City.[1]
[1]
Editor's Note: The referenced section is no longer included in the Town Charter.
It shall hereby be the duty and obligation of the adult occupants of property abutting a sidewalk in a public right-of-way to remove the snow from the sidewalk within 48 hours after the snow has fallen. In the case of multiunit buildings with more than one occupant, it shall be the duty of the lessor to remove the snow unless he has obligated a tenant who is actually occupying the property to do so. Any adult occupant abutting a sidewalk in a public right-of-way, lessor of a multiunit building or tenant obligated by the lessor who fails to remove the snow from the abutting sidewalk within 48 hours after the snow has fallen shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
A.
No person engaged in excavating, repairs to structures or grounds, or construction, or having charge or control of excavation, repairs to structures or grounds, or construction, or who may be engaged in or have charge or control of conveying material to or from excavations, repairs to structures or grounds, or construction, shall deposit, or permit to be deposited, in any manner, upon the surface of any street, alley, avenue, highway, footway, sidewalk, or parking or other public space within the corporate limits of the Town of Chesapeake City either by placing, spilling, dropping, or tracking from wheels of vehicles, or from the feet of animals, or otherwise, any earth, clay, mud, sand, gravel, or other material. If any such deposit occurs every person whose duty it is under this section to prevent such deposit shall promptly remove the same. All macadamized or broken stone roadways adjacent to excavations or traversed by vehicles either in the process of conveying material from an excavation or in returning from the place of deposit to place of excavation shall be covered with planking so far as may be required to prevent any mud, earth, clay or other material from the excavation or from the place of deposit from reaching the surface of such roadway.
B.
No one being the owner, driver, manager, or conductor of any cart or other vehicle shall carry or convey, or cause to be carried or conveyed in such vehicle, any coal, earth, sand, gravel, broken stone, dirt, ashes, paper, and other rubbish, or any loose fluid or offensive articles or matter, or any articles whatsoever within the corporate limits of said Town of Chesapeake City so that the same shall or may be scattered, dropped, let fall, blown, or spilled therefrom, and all vehicles conveying combustible refuse or foul, dusty, or offensive matter of any sort shall have tight bodies and be closely and securely covered. All vehicles conveying wastepaper and wastepaper products, baled, sacked, or otherwise, shall be closely and securely covered.
C.
Owners of lots abutting upon streets, avenues or alleys, or upon public parking or other public space, in the Town of Chesapeake City and which are above grade, shall protect such lots so as to prevent dirt, sand, or gravel, or any bushes, trees or like thing from falling or being washed upon the sidewalks, streets, alleyways or other public space adjacent to the same.
It shall be unlawful for any person to allow his or her horse, mule, cow, hog, chickens or other animals of a similar kind to run at large within the Town limits or to keep any such animals (exclusive of household pets) within the Town, except upon the issuance of a special permit therefor by the Town.
No person shall override, over-drive, overload, torture, ill-treat or cruelly or unreasonably beat, maim, poison, mutilate, or kill any animal whether belonging to himself or another.
Vagrancy is unlawful within the Town limits and all persons who by the common law or by the laws of the State of Maryland are vagrants are hereby declared to be vagrants for the purposes of this section.
[Amended 5-22-2023 by Ord. No. 2023-003]
Except as otherwise provided, any person violating any of the provisions of this chapter, or any lawful order issued by the police in pursuance thereof, or committing any of the acts declared to be unlawful by this chapter, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be subject to a fine not to exceed $1,000 or imprisonment for a period not to exceed six months, or both, and where the offense is of a continuing nature each day's violation shall be deemed a separate offense.
If any word, phrase, clause, item, sentence, paragraph, section or part in or of this chapter shall judicially be declared to be unconstitutional or the applicability thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the constitutionality of the remainder of this chapter and the applicability thereof to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
A.
It shall be unlawful for any minor under the age of 18 years to loiter, idle, wander, stroll, or play in or upon the public streets, highways, roads, alleys, parks, playgrounds, or other grounds, public places and public buildings, places of amusement and entertainment, vacant lots or other unsupervised places between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. each day; provided, however, that the provisions of this section shall not apply to a minor accompanied by his or her parent, guardian, or other adult person having the care and custody of the minor, or a minor who has in his or her possession a note signed by his or her parent, guardian, or other adult person having the care and custody of the said minor, said note stating that the named minor has permission to be outside his or her home during curfew hours because of an emergency or legitimate business to be conducted, the nature of the emergency or legitimate business, and the time period to which the permission applies.
B.
It shall be unlawful for the parent, guardian, or other adult person having the care and custody of a minor under the age of 18 years to knowingly permit such minor to loiter, idle, wander, stroll or play in or upon the public streets, highways, roads, alleys, parks, playgrounds, or other public grounds, public places and public buildings, places of amusement and entertainment, vacant lots or other unsupervised places in violation of Subsection A above.
C.
The prohibitions imposed by this section may be lifted for specified days or periods by the Council of the Town of Chesapeake City by proclamation adopted in the form of a resolution at a regular or special meeting and proclaimed to the residents of the Town of Chesapeake City by posting, publication, or loudspeaker announcement.
D.
Any minor violating the provisions of Subsection A shall be referred to the Cecil County Department of Juvenile Services for processing in accordance with the laws of the State of Maryland. Any parent, guardian or other person having the care and custody of a minor violating Subsection B shall be fined not more than $10 for the first offense and not more than $25 for each subsequent offense.