Member sues Town of Southwest Ranches, Florida over residency restriction

A Member (who we will not name to respect his privacy), has sued Southwest Ranches, a city in west Broward County, Florida, over their Sex Offender Residency Restriction (SORR). Although he challenges the application of their ordinance as to himself (since his case predates the ordinance by more than a decade) that was not the catalyst of the suit. The need for the lawsuit was because the Town administrators, police and city attorney simply won’t tell him whether the proposed residence is compliant or not.

Southwest Ranches, like most municipalities, has an ordinance which establishes banishment zones around places such as schools, parks, school bus stops and “places where children regularly congregate”. In this case, the radius of the buffer zone is 2500 feet, which creates an exclusion zone of more than 450.5 acres. I say more than, because the center of the circle is not the center of the property, but any point on the perimeter of the property.

When you consider that the entire town is comprised of only 8409.6 acres, an equal distribution of bus stops and playgrounds can easily render the entire town off limits. The City of Ft. Lauderdale recently had to amend their SORR after it was determined that only 3% of the city was compliant and a court struck their old SORR as unconstitutional. Unfortunately in this case, the Plaintiff can’t tell where he can or can’t live and apparently neither can the city, the city attorney or the police who are charged with enforcing the ordinance – Either that, or they simply don’t want to tell him.

In an effort to be compliant, the plaintiff asked the city and the police department whether he could move in to a proposed property, but they stonewalled him. After getting nowhere for months, he hired an attorney to try and get the answers for him, but after a couple more months of the same, the plaintiff had no choice but to sue the city – which is where things stand now.

Attorney Ron Kleiner, who represents the plaintiff in this lawsuit, says that this practice is not unusual. “It’s a byproduct of the ‘not in my backyard’ mentality that we see quite often. This is not about public safety, this is about banishment. If the ordinance can’t keep someone out of the city, some officials will stall until the registrant gives up or the property is rented to somebody else and it’s too late.” If a city is going to enact such an ordinance and enforce it by potentially imprisoning people, they should at least be able to give someone notice as to whether they or their property is subject to it.”

The lawsuit also argues that regardless of whether the Property is compliant, as to the Plaintiff, he should not be “subjected to the risk of further criminal prosecution by virtue of an ordinance which is a direct result of his 1994 offense, which occurred more than a dozen years prior to the enactment of the Ordinance.”

We will keep you informed as things progress.