Teens, Be Home by 11

Dallas police to conduct curfew sweep

An old Richard Pryor routine — sorry, that’s redundant, they’re all old — told of his teenage years when his father, harshly, set and enforced an 11 p.m. curfew for the lad.

He’d go out, mill around with the other guys, and wait for the action. None occurred. “Whachoo guys waitin’ for?” he asked, “ ‘Leven-thirty,” came the answer. “We gonna pitch a [rhymes with] at eleven-thirty.”

Substitute the Dallas Police Department for Pryor’s father, and a different type of curfew enforcement kicks in, hard, tonight and throughout the weekend.

Officers will be on patrol and on the lookout for teens out after 11 p.m., tonight, and midnight tomorrow and Saturday. It’s an effort to remind juvenile summertime hangers-out that this town has a curfew ordinance prohibiting the presence of 17- and younger-year-olds in public after 11 p.m. weeknights and midnight on the weekends. Come 6 a.m., and the kids are welcome out on the streets again.

Get caught, and the teens get a free ride downtown, courtesy the nice officer, where they’re processed and subsequently released to a parent or guardian, providing they’re not all out breaking curfew.

Back in the day, we just had dad’s sinister stare. That was enough to get us home on time every time. Right, Dad? Dad?

Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He’ll probably be home by 11 tonight [sigh].

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