Lee Cataluna: Laws mean little when there is no enforcement

Finally, the city Planning Commission and the City Council are talking about cracking down on apartment buildings disguised as large homes in older residential neighborhoods.

Finally, the city is establishing laws for blocking public sidewalks with tents and tarps and makeshift dwellings.

Finally, there are laws to keep pedestrians from staring at their phones while crossing the street and people from smoking in cars with children.

During this election year, there has been a pile of legislation banning things.

But most — the plastic bag ban, the vaping-in-cars-with-kids ban, the sunscreen ban — don’t include any mechanism or money for enforcement. There’s the description of the act that is banned, the fine for being caught doing the act, and then nothing about who does the busting. The cops? Really? Don’t they have enough to deal with?

A law without a thought toward enforcement isn’t much of a law. It’s a suggestion.

But banning something gives politicians an excuse to have a press conference, get their name in the news and write to their constituents about an important bill they fought for and passed.

Who is going to make the monster-home scofflaws tear down their terrible walls? Who is going to swoop down in marked Department of Planning and Permitting squad cars, surround the concrete fortresses and make them knock it all down while the neighbors gather on the sidewalks with their arms around one another watching and cheering?

A law without a way to enforce the law is as useful as no law at all.

A variation on the unenforceable law is the law that increases penalties on an existing law. If there’s no room left for new laws, politicians debate for weeks about increasing a $500 fine for some infraction to $1,000. Same thing, though. Politicians get to say they accomplished some sort of law-and-order measure even though it’s vague how the law is supposed to be enforced. Oh, we’ll establish a citizen hotline. Call if you see something.

One law signed by the governor from this past legislative session requires “the driver of a vehicle passing and overtaking a bicycle proceeding in the same direction to allow at least three feet of separation between the right side of the driver’s vehicle and the left side of the bicyclist.”

So who’s going to measure that? Who’s going to report infractions, bike cops with body cams? Or will it kick in only after a poor biker gets clipped by a car, as an add-on to the list of charges against the alleged clipper?

Once the November election is over, the legislative session will be right around the corner. Here’s a bold prediction: a spate of new laws to protect pedestrians. There are probably a hundred laws on the books already about speeding and crosswalks and pedestrians, but if nobody is enforcing them, people keep sliding on through the intersection even when Grandpa is in the crosswalk.

All these laws on the books that have yet to have an impact on the issue they are meant to address. The problem isn’t the lack of laws on the books. The problem is too many laws on the books and only occasional enforcement.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.