Abington's Sex Offender Ordinance on the Ropes

The Abington Board of Commissioners yesterday approved a motion to advertise an ordinance to repeal a 2005 ordinance which established sex offender residency restrictions — this, on the heels of a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Ruling, which deemed a similar ordinance in Allegheny County, unconstitutional.

The residency restriction ordinance passed in September 2005 and reads, “No person who is required ... to be registered with the Pennsylvania State Police as a sexual offender (hereinafter a "sexual offender"), shall be permitted to reside or live in the Township of Abington within 2,500 feet of any existing school, park, playground or day-care center.”

It continues, “Any sexual offender who relocates so as to reside or live in the Township of Abington within 2,500 feet of any existing school, park, playground or day-care center in the Township shall have 60 days from receipt of written notice of the prohibition … to relocate to a location which does not violate the prohibition …”

Allegheny County passed its ordinance in October 2007; it also limited sex offenders from living within 2,500 feet of schools, parks and daycare centers. 

Commissioner John Carlin voiced some concern about the potential of repealing the ordinance. He asked Abington Township Solicitor Rex Herder if the current ordinance could be modified. And during last week’s public safety committee meeting he said that he didn’t feel comfortable about repealing the ordinance without having a replacement.

Herder said there is not much the township can do with regards to residency requirements, and added that the pressure to repeal the ordinance is “not completely unexpected.”

“The [Pennsylvania] Supreme Court struck down the Allegheny County ordinance on the grounds that it attempted … to regulate those places where convicted sexual offenders may or may not live,” Herder said. “The Supreme Court held that that ordinance, and any similar ordinance, conflicted with, and was preempted by two different Pennsylvania state laws.

Those laws deal with the sentencing of criminal offenders, and the supervision of criminal offenders once they are released from custody, according to Herder.

“On that ground, the Supreme Court held the Allegany ordinance absolutely unconstitutional … there’s no remedy, no fix, if you will,” he said.

When the township adopted the ordinance in 2005, it did so under the First Class Township Code, which gives municipalities the authority to adopt regulations pertaining to health, safety and welfare.

In fact, the agenda item last night fell under “Public Safety,” rather than “Public Affairs.”

Carlin pressed, “So you’re saying there’s no remedy whatsoever … or this township has no authority and no jurisdiction to regulate where sexual offenders live?”

Herder: “That is correct.”

Upper Dublin Township passed a similar ordinance in 2007