Video Credit: youtube.com via alaskalivedotnet
Pajamas not allowed
Photo Credit: Ron T. Ennis/Fort Worth Star-Telegram/MCT
A mother, in pajamas, dropping off lunch to her child
Kelly Davis, Editor-in-Chief
February 23, 2012
Filed under New Stories, Opinion
A Louisiana commissioner is pushing for a public ordinance that would ban people from wearing pajamas in public. Should curtain clothing or styles of clothing be banned or even made illegal?
According to Michael Williams, Caddo Parish, La., District 3′s real-life fashion police, the answer is: Yes.
“I saw a group of young men wearing pajama pants and house shoes,” Commissioner Williams told the Shreveport Times. “At the part where there should have been underwear, the man’s private parts could be seen through the fabric.”
The proposed ordinance could be on the agenda at the commissioners’ February meeting. If the new no-pajama ordinance is passed, that may not stop people from wearing pajamas in public.
Khiry Tisdem, a resident of Shreveport, told the Sun Herald he wears pajamas in public all the time.
“I wear my [pajama] pants anywhere,” he stated. “I’m an American, and I can wear my clothes anywhere I want. I’m a grown man. I pay my own bills, so I can wear my clothes the way I want.”
One of the major issues with the Parish’s pajama ordinance is defining what’s considered pajamas. One solution is that any items “sold in the sleepwear section of department stores” would fall in new pajama ordinance, according to Commissioner Williams.
Commissioner Williams is working with an attorney on the matters of this pajama ordinance. This could mean no running to the store or dropping the kids off at school in the morning, in your pajamas. Passing a no pajama ordinance is not a stretch for Parish, because Shreveport, a city in the Parish, already has a no-saggy pants law.
The city instituted the no-saggy pants law in 2007, according to the city’s website. In 2011, 31 people were issued citations for “wearing of pants below the waist in public,” according to the Sun Times.
If the new pajama ordinance is passed, what would be the punishment for violators?
Commissioner Williams’s suggests that violators do community service instead of jail time for breaking the ordinance. However, it will be hard for the Parish to administer the new law.
“It’s going to be very difficult to enforce the way it’s described, although I’ve not seen anything in writing,” said Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator.
Banning pajamas or enforcing stricter dress codes are not new issues with most colleges around the country. Many colleges have revamped their student handbook to reflect the changes in fashion.
In 2009, Morehouse College, an all-male college in Atlanta, came under fire when the school changed its dress code policy. Students at the school were banned from wearing sagging pants, pajamas, sunglasses in the classroom, offensive or suggestive clothing, and “do-rags.”
At TVCC, students wear their pajamas and house shoes to class on a regular basis. Charlyne Nyaega, one of TVCC’s exchange students, thinks it’s permissible to wear pajamas in certain situations. “I would go to Wal-Mart in pajamas, but not school,” she said. “There has to be limits.”
Trinity Valley doesn’t have a policy against students wearing pajamas to class. However, the policy that is in the student handbook states: “Refusing to present an appropriate appearance in dress and grooming while participating in or attending a college activity. [For the purpose of this section, 'appropriate appearance' is reasonable standard of dress or grooming that may be required as a part of a program or objectivity of the college. This appropriate appearance may vary for different activities or at different times.] The determination as to what constitutes reasonable standards of dress and grooming is an authority delegated to the college administration by the Board of Trustees.”
People will be watching to see if the no pajama in public ordinance gets passed in Caddo Parish, La. If it does, how will that impact other cities, and possibly colleges?
