For the purposes of sections 15-9 through 15-15E the following terms, phrases, words and their derivations shall have the meaning given herein. When not inconsistent with the context, words used in the present tense include the future, words in the plural number include the singular and words in the singular number include the plural. The word “shall” is always mandatory and not merely directory.
(a) City is the city of Frederick, Maryland.
(b) Emergency means an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action. The term includes, but is not limited to, a fire, natural disaster, or automobile accident, or any situation requiring immediate action to prevent serious bodily injury or loss of life.
(c) Establishment means any privately owned place of business operated for a profit to which the public is invited, including but not limited to any place of amusement or entertainment.
(d) Juvenile or minor is any unemancipated person under the age of seventeen (17) or, in equivalent phrasing often herein employed, any person sixteen (16) or less years of age.
(e) Operator is any individual, firm, association, partnership or corporation operating, managing or conducting any establishment. The term includes the members or partners of an association or partnership and the officers of a corporation.
(f) Parent is any person having legal custody of a juvenile (i) as a natural or adoptive parent, (ii) as a legal guardian, (iii) as a person who stands in loco parentis, or (iv) as a person to whom legal custody has been given by court order.
(g) Public place means any place to which the public or substantial group of the public has access and includes, but is not limited to, streets, common areas of schools, shopping centers, parking lots, parks, playgrounds, transportation facilities, theaters, restaurants, shops, bowling alleys, taverns, cafes, arcades, and similar areas that are open to the use of the public. As a type of public place, a street is a way or place, of whatever nature, open to the use of the public as a matter of right for purposes of vehicular travel or in the case of a sidewalk thereof for pedestrian travel. “Street” includes that legal right-of-way, including but not limited to the cartway of traffic lanes, the curb, the sidewalks whether paved or unpaved, and any grass plots or other grounds found within the legal right-of-way of a street.
(h) Remain means to stay behind, to tarry and to stay unnecessarily in a public place including the congregating of groups (or of interacting minors) totaling four (4) or more persons in which any juvenile involved would not be using the streets for ordinary or serious purposes such as mere passage or going home, or to fail to leave the premises of an establishment when requested to do so by a police officer or the operator of an establishment. To implement this provision with additional precision and precaution, numerous exceptions are expressly defined in sections 15-10 through 15-15E. More and more exceptions become available with a juvenile’s increasing years and advancing maturity as appropriate in the interest of reasonable regulation.
(i) Time of night referred to herein is based upon the prevailing standard of time, whether Eastern Standard Time or Eastern Daylight Savings Time, generally observed at that hour by the public in the city; prima facie the time then observed in the city administrative offices and police station.
(j) Years of age continues from one birthday, such as the sixteenth to (but not including the day of) the next, such as the seventeenth birthday, making it clear that sixteen (16) or less years of age is herein treated as equivalent to the phrase “under seventeen (17) years of age,” the latter phrase in practice, unfortunately, having confused a number of persons into the mistaken thought that seventeen (17) years old might be involved. Similarly, for example, eleven (11) or less years of age means “under twelve (12) years of age.” (Ord. No. G-78-15, § 1, 6-15-78; Ord. No. G-95-17, § 1, 6-15-95)