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...policing of fashion has long been the province of sharp-clawed style mavens, but local politicians in a Florida town decided to give the job to law enforcement. City authorities in Riviera Beach, Fla., passed an ordinance earlier this year declaring it "unlawful for any person to appear in public or in view of the public wearing pants below the waist which expose the skin or undergarments." The offending style, of course, was the hip-hop-influenced saggy-pants fashion, popular primarily among young black men who let their pants drop and expose a few inches of their boxer shorts...
...beach community of 37,000 north of West Palm Beach is hardly alone in trying to crack down on a street style that originated in the prison system, where belts are banned as a security risk. Cities such as Atlanta, Dallas and Charlotte, N.C., have considered imposing fines on anyone who lets his drawers show, while Flint, Mich., and some Louisiana parishes have local laws similar to Riviera Beach's. And the city authorities had a strong voter mandate for the curb: 72% of voters in a local referendum called for a ban on saggy pants...
...Riviera Beach's population is two-thirds African American, and the campaign to curtail sagging, as the style is called, was led by Bishop Thomas A. Masters, the city's African-American mayor and a Baptist church pastor for more than two decades. "Everywhere I went, there was a groundswell, a cry for something to be done for what the community was seeing as disrespect, indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, as related to the pants situation," Masters explained. The collection of more than 4,700 signatures in a petition drive to place the issue on the ballot only emphasized the city...
...Despite popular support for the ban, it has elicited plenty of popular opposition. Walking through a Riviera Beach neighborhood last week, 23-year-old Bo Brown denounced the law as a pretext for police officers to harass young men idling on street corners. Brown's jeans-shorts were worn dropped, but a large white polo shirt covered any underwear exposure, making his look legal. Pointing out the home of a friend who was cited for sagging, Brown says, "I did it, but I don't anymore. I don't want to be harassed...
...Twenty miles (32 km) outside city limits at the Boynton Beach Mall, 17-year-old Jay Johnson lets his black shirt drape over dropped shorts. "My dad and my mom don't like it," he says. "You gotta listen to your parents. And I know it's hard to find a job with your pants down low, so you fix them." Some who are against the fashion argue there is no need for a fashion police, despite sagging's association with gangsta...