Mae Davis is a regular at Athens City Council meetings. She has brought problems to the council concerning her Brownsferry Street neighborhood, such as overgrown lots and young prostitutes working the streets.

At Monday’s meeting, Davis was unusually quiet. When asked by Council President Johnny Crutcher if she had anything to bring to the council, she said, “If you can do anything about those sagging pants, I sure would appreciate it.”

Davis was referring to a style of clothing worn by many of the community’s youth in which trousers or jean are worn low-slung and appear to barely remain about the hips. Often the style leaves undershorts exposed.

Her idea for the council to act on the issue is not a new one. Several communities, including Shreveport, La.; Delcambre, La.; Atlanta; Warner Robbins, Ga.; and Jasper County, S.C., have enacted ordinances against sagging britches. One community, Riviera Beach, Fla., conducted a referendum on the issue and 72 percent of the voters approved making it against the law to let pants sag below the underwear line.

In some places, such as Lynwood, Ill., the ordinance is being challenged. The American Civil Liberties Union says it’s unconstitutional to legally cite or fine people for a clothing style.

Local schools already have paragraphs in handbooks forbidding sagging pants and principals are authorized to send students home to change into proper attire before allowing them into class.

Limestone County Assistant Superintendent Mike Owens said the county school dress code states: “No part of underwear or the area normally covered by underwear may be exposed.”

“We leave this up to the individual principal on how many warnings a student may get,” said Owens. “When I was principal at Ardmore, we would give them as many as three warnings. On the first two, we’d have them call home and get a change of clothes brought to them. But they couldn’t go to class dressed like that.”

Athens City Schools Superintendent Orman Bridges said the problem of sagging pants was especially prevalent in Middle School before the board had regulations printed in the handbook.

“The administration of a school will provide clothing from a closet if they have it,” said Bridges. “We have extensive lost-and-found collections that the students just never came to claim. We just put them in a closet. If a student does not have suitable clothing on they can either go home and change or wear something from the closet, if they can find anything that fits.”

Bridges said that the Middle School keeps a supply of ropes available to use as makeshift belts to hold pants in place at the waistline if a student’s pants are sagging too much to be admitted to class.

“We enforce the rules to get the problem corrected, and if they don’t, then we have to go to some punishment such as detention,” said Bridges.

Bridges said for educators it’s more than a matter of offending others by letting underwear show.

“It’s also a safety issue,” he said. “If their pants are up where they’re supposed to be they can’t hide anything, such as strapping a weapon to their leg, such as they could under loose clothing.”

Athens City Councilman Harold Wales said that the style “makes me sick.”

“I’d support anything,” said Wales. “But I would like to see state or federal laws concerning this issue. It really shows a lack of respect for other people and themselves. Of course, it would fall on the police to enforce it. I might have a conversation with Police Chief Wayne Harper about this. A man doesn’t need to have his pants down around his knees. Overall, it’s degrading to the city and county.”

Harper said it would make extra work for his officers. “I suppose I’d have to hire a ‘pants enforcer,’” he said. “I guess it would have to be sort of like the noise ordinance or the litter ordinance. A citizen would have to sign a complaint and we’d send an officer out and if he sees it he can issue a citation—but not make an arrest, at least not initially.”

Councilman Ronnie Marks said he would like to study ordinances enacted by other cities before considering a sagging pants ordinance here.

“I know we have a whole lot of crack houses, drugs and prostitution here that I would rather have our police officers taking care of rather than worrying about sagging pants,” said Marks.