Bored youngsters run into frustrated town elders

PRINCETON, Ill. -- It is another summer night in this sleepy town and a few dozen young people are in a downtown park, standing around or plunked on the hoods of cars, telling stories, smoking and laughing at each other's jokes.

Such activity -- or inactivity -- has been going on in small towns across the country for years. In Princeton, town officials want it stopped.

Last month, complaints about litter, vandalism and noise prompted the city council of this 7,600-resident village to join a growing number of communities that have enacted ordinances to ban such late-night gatherings.

"If they're down there in that area and they're behaving responsibly, we don't have an issue with that," said Andrew Brannen, Princeton's city manager. "It's when the foul language, the vandalism and the garbage start that we have problems."

Not surprisingly, the young people don't see things the way their elders do. In Princeton, they say they're not responsible for the vandalism, don't know who urinated on a storefront or rearranged the words of a sign into what Brannen called a "rather vulgar phrase."

Brannen and others still say there's been enough swearing and loud talk to scare off other residents who might otherwise enjoy the night and enough of a mess to anger store owners.

"A lot of the business owners would have to come in and sweep up trash from the night before just to open up their business," said police chief Tom Root. "We had empty trash cans sitting right there, a foot from the piles of garbage."

The story is much the same in towns across the country, and several have passed similar ordinances.

In places where the main street is named Main Street, young people loiter their summer nights away. It was that way in the days when car radios blared Elvis and it's still that way when CD players bump Eminem.

The youths of Princeton admit to their share of four-letter words, but they claim that town residents are just stodgy and threatened by a crowd of youngsters having fun.

As for the trash, at least one teenager is addressing the concerns of her elders. Eighteen-year-old Janessa Borri, clad in bell-bottom jeans and a Playboy T-shirt picks up cigarette butts and litter. She scolds others, many dressed in flip-flop sandals and multi-pocketed cargo shorts.

The young people say they're not roving gangs or drug dealers -- just bored kids hanging out.

"What you see up here is every night, just meaningless fun," said Robert Vowels, 18.

That became clear when the sound of a plastic bumper scraping concrete was met with roars of laughter. "That's our entertainment, when an idiot pulls up," said Vowels.

Besides laughing at each other, the youths just shuffle, amble and meander about. Here, the storyteller holds court, regaling the rest with the day's events -- or lack thereof.

They laze around like lions at a zoo, a few drinking beer and some couples making out.

City officials say the young people should find something more productive to do with their time. But the youths say the alternatives in a town that has but one movie theater, a few video rental stores, a recreation center and some restaurants aren't all that great.

The rec center is closed at night. The young people say the movies that come to the Apollo Theater are weeks old and start no later than 7:15 p.m., leaving them with a good chunk of their nights looking for something to do.

As for staying home, forget it. "Who says our parents want us?" asked 21-year-old Charles Philips.

And driving to a bigger city has it's own drawbacks -- starting with the money it takes to buy gas to get to Peoria and Joliet, each at least 1 1/2 hours away.

Besides ticking off teens and 20-somethings, the ordinances discriminate against age and tread on the Constitution, said Ed Yohnka, communications director for the American Civil Liberties Union in Chicago.

"It's hard to find the asterisk in the clause of the First Amendment that says, 'Except when you're under 21,"' Yohnka said.

Yohnka said cities are branding all youths as rabble-rousers, instead of looking for the guilty parties.

But Root says the ordinance is the only way to police the crowds.

"How do they think we should do that, when there's 50 to 100 kids down there and no one will tell us anything?" Root asked.

The kids say they'll take their chances. "There's nothing to do," said Nick Cerar, 18. "This is the bare minimum."