The Columbia Board of Aldermen last month enacted an anti-loitering ordinance aimed at curtailing drug-related activity in the town. 

Town attorney Dwight Wheless presented his recommendation after consulting with the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill and the district attorney.

On motion by Alderman Sandra Owens, the ordinance was passed without objection.

Major difference from a state statute District Court Judge Darrell Cayton struck down in February 2015 is that the new law prohibits arrest “unless circumstances establish probable cause to believe that the person arrested or charged intended to violate one or more of the provisions of G.S. 90-86 et seq.” (the state’s drug laws).

Judge Cayton found the 2007 loitering statute affecting Columbia to be substantially the same as a Winston-Salem ordinance that the N.C. Court of Appeals struck down in 2009. The appeals court held that the Winston-Salem ordinance was overbroad; was void for vagueness; and violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by not requiring a showing of probable cause for an arrest.

Tyrrell Sheriff Darryl Liverman told the aldermen in March 2015 that he and his deputies would no longer enforce the 2007 law locally.

The new ordinance makes it “unlawful for a person to remain or wander about in a public place for the purpose of engaging in a violation of any provision of” the state’s drug laws.

Actions, among others, law enforcement officers may consider in determining a person’s purpose include: (1) repeatedly beckon to, stop, or attempt to stop passersby, or repeatedly attempt to engage passersby in conversation; (2) repeatedly stop or attempt to stop motor vehicles; (3) repeatedly interfere with the free passage of other persons; (4) being a known unlawful drug user, possessor or seller; (5) repeatedly pass to or receive from passersby, whether on foot or in a vehicle or other means of transportation, money, or objects; (6) attempt to flee or evade a police officer; (7) being at a location frequented by persons who use, possess or sell controlled substances; (8) occupy a vehicle registered to a known unlawful drug user; or (9) converse with the occupant of, and give or receive money or any object from, the occupant of a vehicle registered to a known unlawful drug user, possessor or seller or which vehicle has been recently involved in illegal drug-related activity .