Town Swears Off Swearing In Public, Imposes Fine

Town Swears Off Swearing In Public

A Massachusetts town will be handing out $20 tickets for swearing in public.

Residents of Middleborough, Mass, have voted at their annual town meeting on Monday the implementation of a $20 fine for swearing in public.

"Kids were standing on the sidewalks, well, adults too, really, and yelling at someone like 100 feet down the block, using incredible profanity," 63-year-old Mimi Duphily told ABC News. "It was gradually getting worse and worse."

Duphily was responsible for bringing up the issue to the Downtown Business Coalition.

The word eventually got around to Middleborough Police Chief Bruce Gates, who later called on the citizens of Middleborough to give police the authority to fine swearing citizens with a $20 ticket.

In his interview with The Wall Street Journal, Gates said that the new provision is not targeting ordinary swear words like an understandable expletive uttered after a Red Sox loss. Instead it aims at offenses like "profane language at some attractive female walking through town,"  he said.

Middleborough, a town of 23,000 located about 40 miles (64km) south of Boston, already had an old public profanity law, passed in 1968, that made swearing a crime. But police long ago decided it was not worth their time to book cursers as criminals, said Gates, who cannot recall the law being enforced.

With reports from Fox DC, ABC, and The Wall Street Journal.