WADESBORO — The Town of Wadesboro has updated its State of Emergency Declaration to specify that, beginning April 10, a curfew will be in effect in Wadesboro from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. nightly for individuals under the age of 18. Exceptions will be allowed for essential workers traveling to and from their jobs and traveling for the purpose of medical treatment.
“We had been talking about instilling the curfew for several days,” explained Wadesboro Town Manager David Edwards. “The first time the conversation came up was Friday, April 3. Several of the councilmen had made comments about hearing from other citizens and seeing for themselves some of the activity that was going around town, especially with some of our younger folks.”
This activity included groups of youth gathering at places around Wadesboro, particularly at night. Walmart’s parking lot is a popular destination for these teenagers to congregate. “There has been a consistent gathering of young folks there in the evening and our police officers were having to go out there and remind them to be apart from one another and not be in groups of more than ten,” said Edwards.
“I did some research and looked at what some other towns were doing, in terms of their curfew, and made some recommendations to the mayor,” said Edwards. Mayor Thacker ultimately decides when the curfew goes into place and what it’s parameters are.
Violation of the curfew is a Class 2 Misdemeanor. “The police are the ones responsible for enforcing the curfew. We certainly hope for compliance rather than go that far,” said Edwards. In the event of a violation, the police will talk to the magistrate and issue a citation, which is called a Juvenile Petition, and the defendant would have to come to Juvenile Court whenever that is able to happen again.
The terms of the curfew, such as its hours and who it effects, could be expanded at a later date “The state statutes give relatively broad authority to local elected officials during a State of Emergency,” said Edwards. “I don’t currently anticipate that but, with COVID-19, there’s something brand new every day and we have to evolve along with it.”
Under the State of Emergency, Mayor Thacker also has the authority to evacuate the town, ban the sale, consumption, transportation, or possession of alcoholic beverages, and ban firearms. “At this time, I can’t see why he would do that,” said Edwards. “We certainly haven’t had, to my knowledge, any alcohol or firearm-related incidents as a result of people being at home.”
“You can’t arbitrarily limit people and restrict things because you have a State of Emergency, you have to be able to show a connection and a train of thought about why you did this thing in order to try and help alleviate the circumstances of the emergency,” said Edwards.
“This first weekend of the curfew went very well. We’ve had no issues and everybody seems to be complying. We’re very appreciative of that,” said Edwards. Anson County’s count of laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 has grown to ten as of Monday morning.
