Ordinance Bans Sex Offenders

{Hurricane, West Virginia}...According to West Virginia State Police, there are 28 registered sex offenders currently living in Hurricane. A new ordinance in Hurricane makes jogging and bike trails, athletic fields and many other places off limits to registered sex offenders. It also prohibits sex offenders from getting within 500 feet of so-called child safety zones, including bowling alleys, movie theaters, schools, public libraries, arcades, indoor and outdoor amusement centers and parks and public or commercial and semi-private swimming pools. Hurricane Mayor Scott Edwards says he introduce the city law after he got reports last year that sex offenders had been seen watching children at those types of locations, and there was no law to make them leave. In a similar ordinance in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the appeals court ruled that by prohibiting sex offenders from public libraries, the city was limiting a fundamental right to receive information. Edwards says he will address council members and take that part out.