A 17-year-old North Port, Florida, boy has been barred from the Sarasota County Library Department’s Venice branch for one year. Venice Public Library head Mary Waddell told American Libraries that she signed a 12-month, no-trespass police order against the teen because of illegal activity he is alleged to have conducted in a gay-interest chat room using library computers.
Contrary to a report in the September 28 Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the teen was not barred for refusing to stop viewing pornography, Waddell emphasized. She said that he was brought to her attention by a call from a friend of one of the boy’s chat-room acquaintances, who accused him of conducting illegal activity online using VPL machines. Waddell declined to be more specific because of an ongoing investigation.
Staff called law enforcement when the boy, a daily library user, returned. The trespass order does not prohibit him from frequenting other Sarasota County branches.
Posted October 9, 2000.