Legal News

Smelly People in Hawaii . . . and the Law

By Ashby Jones

As devoted riders of New York City’s subway system (which, despite its faults, keeps Gotham an extremely livable place) we’ve had the occasion to smell some unholy smells. And when we do, we try to behave like other New Yorkers — either move to another car or, well, just breathe through our mouths and deal. No reason to make a federal case out of it.

But some lawmakers in Hawaii are seeing things differently. The city council in Honolulu has teed up a bill that would criminalize having bad body odor while riding the city’s public-transportation system. Click here for the story, from the Honolulu Advertiser.

So many questions. Doesn’t everyone in Hawaii automatically smell amazing, like a mixture of saltwater, pineapple and hibiscus? And public transportation? We thought everyone there drove around in one of these things.

Apparently we were wrong. Honolulu has a public bus system, and is about to build its first commuter-rail line. It also, like anywhere else, we suppose, has smelly people.

According to the article, under the bill, a person found in violation may be ordered to leave transit property and issued a summons or citation by a police officer. If convicted, a person could be fined up to $500, spend up to six months in jail, or be both fined and jailed.

Councilman Rod Tam, a co-sponsor of the bill, provided a provocative explanation for why it’s needed:

“As we become more inundated with people from all over the world, their way of taking care of their health is different. Some people, quite frankly, do not take a bath every day and therefore they may be offensive in terms of their odor.”

(Fair enough, we suppose, though it’s sort of fun to imagine the outcry that would follow were NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg to make such a statement.)

In any event, in recent days, it seems the bill has hit some “technical problems.”

But even if those snags get fixed, other obstacles loom. The local chapter of the ACLU has voiced concern that the bill is onerous and too broadly worded.

“We are obviously concerned about laws that are inherently vague, where a reasonable person cannot know what conduct is prohibited,” said Daniel Gluck, of ACLU Hawaii. “Vague laws - like the proposed ‘odor’ ban - open the door to discriminatory enforcement based on an officer’s individual prejudices.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 03, 2009 (boomark / email).