The Portland City Council’s Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee on Tuesday voted to recommend repealing the city’s “cruising” ordinance, a rarely enforced traffic ordinance meant to deter the solicitation of prostitutes and drug deals.
Under the ordinance, city code 17-5, signs may be posted upon request by Portland Police which designate “no cruising” areas.
In such an area, drivers are not allowed to drive past three times within a two-hour period.
Exempted under the ordinance are government and emergency vehicles, taxis, buses, or other vehicles being operated for business purposes.
Violations of the ordinance are punishable by a minimum $100 fine for first time offense, $300 for a second offense and a minimum $500 for each subsequent offense.
The impetus behind repealing the code, according to City Councilor April Fournier, came from a constituent who “had a concern as we were getting ready to think about Pride Month, and some of the ordinances that we had on the books that may have inadvertently targeted that community.”
Portland Mayor Mark Dion added that the constituent expressed concerns that the ordinance may, or had been applied to target gay men.
Dion, who previously served as Cumberland County sheriff, said that during his tenure as a law enforcement officer the ordinance was in fact used “primarily to target individuals that were believed to be gay, and engaged in cruising for making contact for sexual activity.”
“It was a very disruptive, chaotic approach to, quite frankly, intimidate individuals not to return to certain neighborhoods in the city,” he said. “It wasn’t the best police work that I can think of, and if I was a member of the gay community I would have felt threatened by the fact we were engaged in that.”
Dion said that repealing the ordinance would be “a manner of reparations” to that community.
The Portland mayor also denied that the move to repeal the ordinance was a result of Pride Month, stating that it was brought up in accordance with the “normal timeline of the committee.”
In public comment prior to the committee vote, George Rheault, a resident of Portland Bayside neighborhood, told the Councilors that he is “very much against” repealing the cruising ordinance.
“I think that our city councilors — I think in good faith took this up, I have no idea if it was sort of some kind of political symbolism with Pride Month approaching, or what not,” Rheault said.
According to Rheault, in Bayside, there are “a lot of people entering the neighborhood, looking for drugs, looking for action, looking for certain individuals they can engage with,” and the ordinance is a “great tool” for police to address those situations — when it’s enforced.
“I’m not saying that the loss of this tool is gonna be terrible, but I don’t know why we’re taking away a tool that we might be using better, that might help the quality of life in neighborhoods that need it like mine in Bayside, without really thinking it through,” he added.
Two more members of the public from Portland’s Bayside neighborhood spoke in opposition repealing the ordinance, voicing similar concerns regarding prostitution and human trafficking.
In a June 12 memo to the committee, Portland Police Chief Mark Dubois wrote that the anti-cruising ordinance “provides a tool for the Police Department to intervene and prevent instances of commercial sexual exploitation, and conduct investigations of illegal drug sales.”
According to Dubois, the ordinance is used “very infrequently,” with only one recorded violation from 2023 in the Police Department’s records since 2021.
An examination of prior records showed that citations had been issued under the ordinance ten times on prior occasions, all for incidents involving males attempting to solicit prostitution from females from motor vehicles.
The ordinance was used four times between 1998 and 1999, once in 2015 and five times between 2015 and 2017.
Upon discussing the matter with Acting Assistant Portland Police Chief Martin, who has been with the Department for 38 years, Dubois wrote that the original intent of the ordinance was to address prostitution and to deter males soliciting, and was not “specifically designed to target homosexual males.”
Dubois added that the ordinance has been useful to the Department in investigating illegal drug sales, many of which take place from vehicles.
Portland’s Neighborhood Prosecutor, Richard Bianculli, who is in charge of prosecuting any violations of the cruising ordinance, told Dubois that in his eight years as Neighborhood Prosecutor he has only encountered reports of males soliciting female prostitutes.
“[Bianculli’s] most recent violation involved a male who paid the fine and admitted to
soliciting a female prostitute,” Dubois wrote in the memo. “Additionally, we often receive complaints of women who are not prostitutes being solicited from vehicles while in the Walker Street area, many of whom are Maine Medical Center employees.”
“Most recently, we had a male circling City Hall apparently soliciting people in the area,” the Portland Police Chief wrote.
Due to the infrequency with which the ordinance is used by law enforcement, Dubois wrote that its repeal would not adversely impact public safety.
However, the police chief indicated that without the ordinance, the only other option to police would be to issue a criminal summons, which Dubois stated “would require more aggressive behavior towards a victim before we could enforce.”
City Councilors Anna Trevorrow, Victoria Pelletier and April Fournier voted in favor of repealing the ordinance, while Councilor Roberto Rodriguez voted against.
When explaining his stance on the ordinance, Councilor Rodriguez clarified with Chief Dubois that the ordinance was no longer used to target the gay community due to changes in police department policy and leadership.
The ordinance will now go before the full City Council for a final vote on its repeal.
Cruising laws also help prevent teenage heterosexuals from stalking your daughter.
The attitude of the City Council is encouraging PWM to resemble San Francisco in more ways than just having a waterfront. I now avoid the airport in favor of flying out of BOS.