New Jersey Libertarian Party

The Township of Oldmans in Salem County, at the NJ Libertarian Party's Preempted Ordinance Repeal Projects request, repealed its loitering ordinance as well as other provisions of its "Peace and Good Order" code. The repeal ordinance and my correspondence with Township Attorney John G. Hoffman are on-line at http://www.lpcnj.org/OGTF/LOldmans.pdf.

After I contacted the Township about its loitering ordinance and suggested that it and other provisions of its Peace and Good Order code be repealed, Hoffman invited me to specify which code provisions are in need of repeal. He said that he'd "be more than happy to" include the code provisions I identified in the same repeal ordinance.

Of course, I promptly took Mr. Hoffman up on his offer and found about a dozen other provisions--ranging from "Interference with Fire Departments" to "Attending Gaming Houses"--to be preempted by state law. The Township Committee eventually repealed all but one of the provisions I identified. The one that was not repealed prohibits affixing "any notice, placard or advertisement upon any public building, sidewalk, street, fence, curbstone, wall, park or other public property or place within the limits of said township, except with the permission of the Township Committee." I argued that the provision could be unconstitutional if applied to campaign signs placed along the side of road.