When the law is its own enforcement

The Chronicle checks in today on a slew of city ordinances that seem to be going largely — or totally — unenforced, including a ban put into effect last year on "pocket bikes," quick little motorcycles that councilmembers said were a nuisance and a hazard. Though riding the cycles on public streets was already illegal, City Council spent three meetings and hours of debate before passing an ordinance banning them in May 2005, a move officials said was designed to give police a specific tool for cracking down on the bikes. And yet, more than a year later, HPD hasn't issued any pocket-bike citations. "Unless they're getting calls, I can't imagine officers going out there and actively looking for it," said Hans Marticiuc, president of the Houston Police Officers' Union. "There's no time."

That's not an isolated example, apparently: Council has also, in recent months, passed bans on parking and driving on esplanades and selling vehicles by the side of the road without permission, two more ordinances that haven't produced a single ticket. Council is now at work on yet more ordinances, a tougher smoking ban and tighter juvenile curfew among them, which leaves some people wondering how the police are supposed to find the time to enforce it all, especially in light of the city's recent crime spike. "We spend so much time on all these ordinances, and they are just sitting on the books," City Councilman M.J. Khan told the Chron. "What's the point?"

According to some officials, the ordinances are the point — in other words, it doesn't matter how many tickets are written; the real value is in the law itself. "I think No. 1, some people just say, 'Let's stop doing this, there's a law now,'" chief municipal prosecutor Randy Zamora said. Toni Lawrence, a city councilwoman whose restriction on the use of propane gas by mobile food vendors was passed in council last week, agreed, saying "there are much more serious things to be looking at, with the gangs and the robberies and the killings lately, than going and giving somebody a ticket." But as the Chronicle points out, plenty of tickets do get written in Houston — 774,000 for traffic violations alone in 2005. Which, of course, doesn't mean a murder might have been committed while an officer was busy writing a ticket, but still.

Police say they are writing citations for some ordinances, including one that took effect earlier this year aimed at reducing in-street panhandling (judging by what we've seen lately, it's not working). As for the other laws, like the one prohibiting roadside car sales, police maintain that a combination of having the law on the books and letting people know about it is the most effective strategy. "It definitely works [to have the law in place]," HPD Sgt. Mike Provost told the Chronicle. "We're trying to educate the public."