As one of NYRA’s most active current chapters, NYRA of Southeast Florida has made quite a splash in the Sunshine State over the past year. But as a sign of bigger and better things to come, the chapter is preparing to file NYRA’s first lawsuit; the suit is to be filed next week in federal court against the city of West Palm Beach over its unconstitutional youth curfew.
NYRA-SEFL has negotiated with the city for the past several months in an effort to get the unconstitutional curfew ordinance voluntarily rescinded, meeting with the mayor and arguing before the city commission that the ordinance violates the constitution and is impossible to legally enforce. When these methods were unsuccessful in getting the ordinance repealed, the chapter retained noted Boca Raton civil rights attorney Barry Silver to convince the city of the strength of NYRA-SEFL’s legal arguments.
However, the final deadline imposed by the chapter for West Palm Beach to indicate its willingness to rescind its curfew has passed, and NYRA-SEFL and its attorney are preparing to file a lawsuit in federal district court to ensure that the constitutional rights of all youth in West Palm Beach are respected. Chapter president Jeffrey Nadel and vice president Zachary Goodman said in a statement: “We will not sit idly by as this curfew is illegally enforced against the citizens whom the City Commission was elected to serve.”
This groundbreaking development, the first ever lawsuit filed in a NYRA chapter’s name, will propel NYRA’s campaign against discriminatory youth curfews, and our quest to protect all rights of youth, into the spotlight, and the recent overturning of another youth curfew in Rochester, New York by that state’s Supreme Court bodes well for the chapter’s suit. Stay up to date on the campaign’s developments with NYRA-SEFL’s video blog.
