“As long as they are not behaving in an improper manner, they have as much right as anyone to be in the library,” asserted James Waghorne, president of the Dallas Homeless Neighborhood Association. “If you don’t have 50 cents to buy a newspaper, you can go to the library and read the want ads.”
“This is not about seeing how many people we can kick out of the library. Quite the opposite, it’s about trying to see how many people we can get to come into our building,” countered DPL Director Laurie Evans in the December 28 Dallas Morning News. Noting that other libraries have such policies, American Library Association President-Elect Leslie Burger said, “If people can’t take care of basic hygiene and are disturbing to the 100 or so people around them, then it’s perfectly acceptable for the library to say, ‘Will you please sit somewhere else?’ or ‘Will you consider coming back another day?’”
Burger said the revised policy is similar to library rules established in Boston, Houston, and elsewhere and complies with a 1992 Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that designated public libraries as a limited public forum from which people can be barred if their behavior or habits—including aroma—are bothering other patrons. The case is Kreimer v. Bureau of Police for Morristown.
Set to go into effect in February, the DPL policy is also being implemented in the city’s recreation centers and has been okayed by a city council subcommittee.
Posted December 30, 2005.