Back when I was growing up in Belfast, the fire whistle atop the downtown fire station blew every weeknight at 9 p.m. City police officers took close and stern notice of any youngster under 17 caught on the streets without an adult after that. Truth be told, it was a law observed mostly in the breach, useful for targeting known troublemakers while letting most of us slide. I broke it regularly while walking home after working late at Palmer's Stationery.

Few towns in Maine have youth curfews anymore - Bridgton, Gardiner, Madison, and Millinocket, according to an article in the Bangor Daily News - but that isn't stopping the town of Baileyville from looking into instituting one to address a growing problem with vandalism and unsupervised kids hanging out on street corners as late as four in the morning. The local police chief, Phil Harriman, says he opposed the idea earlier but has come around following a spate of complaints about late-night vandalism and vehicle break-ins.

Belfast dropped its curfew in the 1970s, and the fire whistle, which once signaled everything from fire locations to winter school cancellations, hasn't been used in decades. Whether Baileyville adopts a curfew remains to be seen, but I don't recall that it made much difference in Belfast in the 1960s.

Jeff Clark
Senior Editor and youthful curfew violator

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