[Adopted 6-19-1990 as Ch. 1, §§ 1-1
through 1-12, of the 1990 Code of Ordinances]
The ordinances embraced in this and the following chapters shall be
designated and cited as the “Code of Ordinances, Town of Lincoln, Rhode
Island.” Such ordinances may also be cited as the “Lincoln Code.”
In the construction of this Code and of all ordinances hereafter enacted,
the following interpretations shall be placed on the words and phrases mentioned
in this section, unless such construction or interpretation would be manifestly
inconsistent with the evident intent of the Town Council or repugnant to the
context or to the evident purport of any ordinance.
The Charter of the Town of Lincoln, Rhode Island, printed as the
first part this volume.
The Code of the Town of Lincoln, Rhode Island, as designated in § 1-1.
The time in which an act is to be done shall be computed by excluding
the first and including the last day, except that, when the last day falls
on a Sunday or a legal holiday, the act may be done on the next succeeding
day which is not a Sunday or a legal holiday. When a public office in which
an act is to be performed is closed to the public for the entire day which
constitutes the last day for doing such act, or before its usual closing time
on such day, then such act may be performed on the next succeeding day which
is not a Sunday or legal holiday.
The legal boundary of the Town of Lincoln.
The Town Council of the Town of Lincoln.
The County of Providence in the State of Rhode Island.
Whenever a provision appears requiring the head of a department or
other officer of the Town to do some act or to make certain inspections, it
is to be construed to authorize the head of the department or other officer
of the Town, as the case may be, to designate, delegate and authorize subordinates
to perform the required act or make the required inspection unless the terms
of the provision designate otherwise.
A word importing the masculine gender only shall extend and be applied
to females and to firms, partnerships and corporations as well as to males.
In the interpretation and application of any provision of this Code,
it shall be held to be the minimum requirements adopted for the promotion
of the public health, safety, comfort, convenience and general welfare. Where
any provision of the Code imposes greater restrictions upon the subject matter
than the general provisions imposed by the Code, the provision imposing the
greater restriction or regulation shall be deemed to be controlling.
All words giving a joint authority to three or more persons or officers
shall be construed as giving such authority to a majority of such persons
or officers.
Persons, firms, associations, corporations, clubs and partnerships,
whether acting by themselves or through a servant, agent or employee.
A calendar month.
Words and phrases shall be construed according to the common and
approved usage of the language; but technical words and phrases and such others
as may have acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law shall be construed
and understood according to such meaning.
A word importing the singular number only may extend and be applied
to several persons and things as well as to one person or thing, and a word
importing the plural number may be applied to one person or thing.
Construed to include an affirmation in all cases in which, by law,
an affirmation may be substituted for an oath, and in such cases the words
“swear” and “sworn” shall be equivalent to the words
“affirm” and “affirmed.” The word “engaged”
shall be equivalent to the word “sworn” or “affirmed.”
-- Whenever the title of an officer, department, board or other agency
is given it shall be construed as though the words “of the Town of Lincoln”
were added.
“Or” may be read “and,” and “and”
may be read “or,” if the sense requires it.
Applied to a building or land, shall include any part owner, joint
owner, tenant in common, tenant in partnership, joint tenant by the entirety
of the whole or a part of such building or land.
A corporation, firm, partnership, association, organization, club,
society, body corporate or politic, or any other group acting as a unit, as
well as a natural person.
Next before and next after, respectively.
Place or places.
Real and personal property.
Includes, without limitation, any park, cemetery, school yard or
open space adjacent thereto and all beaches, canals or other waterways, and
any public street or way.
Lands, tenements and hereditaments and rights thereto and interests
therein.
-- The latest edition or reenactment of the General Laws of Rhode
Island, Reenactment of 1956.
The word “shall” is mandatory, whereas the word “may”
is permissive.
The “signature” or “subscription” of a person
shall include a mark when the person cannot write.
The State of Rhode Island.
Public boulevards, avenues, courts, lanes, alleys, squares, drives,
roads, corners and sidewalks.
Applied to a building or land, shall include any person holding a
written or oral lease of, or who occupies, the whole or a part of such building
or land, either along or with others.
Words used in the past or present tense include the future as well
as the past and present.
The Town of Lincoln in the County of Providence and the State of
Rhode Island.
Seven days.
Any representation of words, letters or figures, whether by printing
or otherwise.
The catchlines of the several sections of this Code printed in boldface
type are intended as mere catchwords to indicate the contents of the section,
and unless otherwise expressly so provided, shall not be deemed or taken to
be titles of such sections or as any part of the section, nor, unless expressly
so provided, shall they be so deemed when any of such sections, including
the catchlines, are amended or reenacted.
The history notes appearing in parentheses after sections of this Code
are not intended to have any legal effect but are merely intended to indicate
the source of matter contained in the section.
[1]
Editor's Note: This section refers to the history style of the 1990
Code of Ordinances. Histories in the 2004 Code are indicated as follows: chapter
histories appear at the beginning of each chapter, citing the source legislation
for the chapter; article histories appear below the article title; and section
and subsection histories appear at the end of such section's title or at the
end of the subsection, in proximity to the amended provision.
The Editor’s Notes and State Law References appearing in the Code
are merely information to assist the user of the Code and are of no legal
effect.
Nothing in this Code or the ordinance adopting this Code shall affect
any offense or act committed or done, or any penalty or forfeiture incurred,
or any contract or right established or accruing, before the effective date
of this Code.
Any and all additions and amendments to this Code, when passed in such
form as to indicate the intention of the Town to make the same a part hereof,
shall be deemed to be incorporated herein, so that reference to the Code shall
be understood and intended to include such additions and amendments.
A.
The repeal of an ordinance shall not revive any ordinances
in force before or at the time the ordinance repealed took effect.
B.
The repeal of an ordinance shall not affect any punishment
or penalty incurred before the repeal took effect, nor any suit, prosecution
or proceeding pending at the time of the repeal, for an offense committed
or cause of action arising under the ordinance repealed.
A.
Nothing in this Code or the ordinance adopting this Code
shall be construed to repeal or otherwise affect the validity of any of the
following when not inconsistent with this Code:
(1)
Any ordinance promising or guaranteeing the payment of
money by the Town, or authorizing the issuance of any bonds of the city, or
any evidence of the Town’s indebtedness, or any contract, agreement,
lease, deed or other instrument or obligation assumed by the Town or creating
interest and sinking funds;
(2)
Any right or franchise, permit, or other right granted
by any ordinance;
(3)
Any personnel regulations; any ordinance establishing
salaries of Town officers and employees or establishing a classification plan
or salary schedule;
(4)
Any ordinance dedicating, naming, establishing, locating,
relocating, opening, paving, widening, repairing or vacating any street, alley
or other public way in the Town;
(5)
Any ordinance establishing and prescribing the street
grades in the Town;
(6)
Any appropriation ordinance or any ordinance levying
or imposing taxes;
(7)
Any ordinance providing for local improvements and assessing
taxes therefor;
(8)
Any ordinance dedicating or accepting any plat or subdivision
in the Town;
(9)
Any ordinance establishing the official plat of the Town;
(10)
Any Zoning Map Amendment or Land Use, Rezoning or Zoning
Ordinance;
(11)
Any ordinance annexing territory or excluding territory
from the Town;
(12)
Any ordinance prescribing traffic regulations for specific
locations, prescribing through streets, parking limitations, parking prohibitions,
one-way traffic, limitations on loads of vehicles or loading zones, not inconsistent
with such Code;
(13)
Any Subdivision Ordinance;
(14)
Any ordinance creating special districts or assessing
taxes therefor;
(15)
Any ordinance granting specific tax exemptions;
(16)
Any temporary or special ordinance;
(17)
Any administrative ordinance;
(18)
Any ordinance adopted after March 15, 1988; and
B.
All such ordinances are hereby recognized as continuing
in full force and effect to the same extent as if set out at length herein.
A.
All ordinances passed subsequent to this Code, which
amend, repeal or in any way affect this Code, may be numbered in accordance
with the numbering system of this Code and printed for inclusion herein, or
in the case of repealed chapters, sections and subsections or any part thereof,
by subsequent ordinances, such repealed portions may be excluded from the
Code by omission thereof from reprinted pages affected thereby, and the subsequent
ordinances, as numbered and printed, or omitted in the case of repeal, shall
be prima facie evidence of such subsequent ordinances until such time that
this Code and subsequent ordinances numbered or omitted are readopted as a
new Code by the Town Council.
B.
Amendments to any of the provisions of this Code should
be made by amending such provisions by specific reference to the section of
the Code in substantially the following language: “That section ___________
of the Code of Ordinances, Town of Lincoln, Rhode Island, is hereby amended
to read as follows: ... (Set out new provisions in full).”
C.
In the event a new section not heretofore existing in
the Code is to be added, the following language may be used: “That the
Code of Ordinances, Town of Lincoln, Rhode Island, is hereby amended by adding
a section (or article, chapter or other designation, as the case may be),
to be numbered __________, which reads as follows: ... (Set out new provisions
in full).”
D.
All sections, articles, chapters or other provisions
of this Code desired to be repealed should be specifically repealed by section
number, article number, chapter or other number, as the case may be.
A.
By contract or by Town personnel, supplements to this
Code shall be prepared and printed whenever authorized or directed by the
Town Council. A supplement to the Code shall include all substantive permanent
and general parts of ordinances passed by the Town Council or adopted by initiative
and referendum during the period covered by the supplement and all changes
made thereby in the Code. The pages of a supplement shall be so numbered that
they will fit properly into the Code and will, where necessary, replace pages
which have become obsolete or partially obsolete, and the new pages shall
be so prepared that, when they have been inserted, the Code will be current
through the date of the adoption of the latest ordinance included in the supplement.
B.
In the preparation of a supplement to this Code, all
portions of the Code which have been repealed shall be excluded from the Code
by the omission thereof from reprinted pages.
C.
When preparing a supplement to this Code, the codifier
(meaning the person, agency or organization authorized to prepare the supplement)
may make formal, nonsubstantive changes in ordinances and parts of ordinances
included in the supplement, insofar as it is necessary to do so to embody
them into a unified Code. For example, the codifier may:
(1)
Organize the ordinance material into appropriate subdivisions;
(2)
Provide appropriate catchlines, headings and titles for
sections and other subdivisions of the Code printed in the supplement, and
make changes in such catchlines, headings and titles;
(3)
Assign appropriate numbers to sections and other subdivisions
to be inserted in the Code and, where necessary to accommodate new material,
change existing section or other subdivision numbers;
(4)
Change the words “this ordinance” or words
of the same meaning to “this chapter,” “this article,”
“this section,” etc., as the case may be, or to “§§ _________
to __________ (inserting section numbers to indicate the sections of the Code
which embody the substantive sections of the ordinance incorporated into the
Code); and
(5)
Make other nonsubstantive changes necessary to preserve
the original meaning of ordinance sections inserted into the Code, but in
no case shall the codifier make any change in the meaning or effect of ordinance
material included in the supplement or already embodied in the Code.
It is hereby declared to be the intention of the Town Council that the
sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses and phrases of this Code are severable,
and if any phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph or section of this Code shall
be declared unconstitutional, invalid or unenforceable by the valid judgment
or decree of any court of competent jurisdiction, such unconstitutionality,
invalidity or unenforceability shall not affect any of the remaining phrases,
clauses, sentences, paragraphs and sections of the Code, since the same would
have been enacted by the Town Council without the incorporation in this Code
of any such unconstitutional, invalid or unenforceable phrase, clause, sentence,
paragraph or section.
