At last Monday’s Orono Town Council sub-committee meeting, Town Manager Sophie Wilson and Orono Police Chief Josh Ewing proposed several changes to Orono’s law enforcement ordinances regarding disorderly properties and fees. Changes were made to the penalties for landlords in the hopes that the changes would encourage management at large-scale student housing complexes to better control their tenants.

According to Wilson, large-scale parties, such as the one earlier this month at The Grove in which officers from nine different precincts were called, are the main reason these changes are being proposed.

“Our recent issues in Orono have brought to our attention that the current code, with some tweaking we think would give my staff the tools it needs to enforce council’s vision on these two ordinances; the fee for service ordinance as well as the disorderly property ordinance,” Wilson said.

In order to see what changes could be made, Wilson and Ewing approached the town attorney for suggestions that could make the ordinances more enforceable for large scale student housing complexes such as The Grove.

“These ordinances by themselves have issues in terms of management […] and enforcement in a way that’s transparent,” Wilson said. “Last week, we rolled out to council our thought that we have several ordinances in our current code that need some work. The way it was written made it pretty much un-enforceable in the large complexes.”

According to the current iteration of the disorderly ordinance, one disorderly event can be charged per property over the course of a 24-hour period. If a property receives two disorderly event charges within 60 days, it is then deemed a disorderly property, with subsequent fines and penalties for every time law enforcement is called to the location. This ruling can be changed after 180 days.

One of the proposals is to allow for more than one disorderly event write-up per 24-hour period, meaning that a property could potentially be deemed disorderly within the course of 24 hours instead of 48 hours under the old ordinance. Wilson and the council also discussed increasing the amount of time a property is classified as disorderly from 180 days to 360.

“Part of what we’re trying to do here is to make owners put the tools in their toolbox to have to be able to manage what happens on their property,” Wilson said.

Several councilors expressed concerns over this sort of change, fearing that it could heavily penalize property managers who may not have been present to control the situation and could cause undue strain on their business.

Ewing countered by stating that more pre-emptive action is required by landlords to control their tenants.

“As a landlord, what have you not done to communicate to your tenants that if we come in your house to [disperse] an event, you’re gonna get booted,” Ewing said.

In order to lessen the burden on landlords, a provision may be put in effect so the first visit from law enforcement to the property would act as a warning, with subsequent visits carrying disorderly event penalties. Council also suggested that landlords include information regarding the disorderly ordinance and fees in their lease agreements so tenants could have a better idea of how their actions affect property owners, who could pass charges down to tenants to pay.

A public hearing is being planned for October in which a final draft of the disorderly ordinance will be shown to the public for comment.