City of Clarkson Valley v. Jones, 63899

• Decision Date: 01 February 1994
• Docket Number: No. 63899,63899
• Citation: 872 S.W.2d 531
• Parties: CITY OF CLARKSON VALLEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Alan W. JONES, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

Page 531

872 S.W.2d 531

CITY OF CLARKSON VALLEY, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Alan W. JONES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 63899.

Missouri Court of Appeals,

Eastern District,

Division One.

Feb. 1, 1994.

Motion for Rehearing and/or Transfer to Supreme Court Denied March 23, 1994.

Application to Transfer Denied April 26, 1994.

G. Richard Fox, St. Louis, for plaintiff-respondent.

Charles H. Billings, Mary P. Schroeder, St. Louis, for defendant-appellant.

CRANDALL, Presiding Judge.

Defendant, Alan Jones, appeals from his convictions, in a court tried case, of eighteen municipal ordinance violations for maintaining a nuisance, to wit a barbed wire fence within the boundaries of the City of Clarkson Valley. Defendant was sentenced to pay a fine of $100.00 for each conviction. We affirm.

Defendant, who lived in a residential area, was charged with having a barbed wire fence on his property from February 14, 1992, to March 2, 1992, in violation of Clarkson Valley City Code, Mo., Ch. 12, art. II, § 12-26 (1991). Defendant was tried in the Municipal Court of Clarkson Valley and convicted on all eighteen ordinance violations. Defendant filed an application for trial de novo to the circuit court where he was tried and again found guilty of all eighteen ordinance violations.

On appeal, defendant first claims that the trial court erred in finding the defendant guilty of maintaining a nuisance because the ordinance is vague and does not specify what conduct is prohibited. Ch. 12 of the City Code prohibits nuisances. Ch. 12, art. II, § 12-26 (1991) defines a nuisance as:

(1) Any act done or committed, or suffered to be done or committed, by any person, or any substance or thing kept, maintained, placed or found in or upon any public or private place which is annoying or damaging or injurious or dangerous to the public health or public safety or public welfare....

(14) Every act or thing done or made, permitted, maintained, allowed or continued on any property public or private, by any person, his/her agent or employee which is liable to or does endanger, annoy, damage or injure any person or any inhabitant of the city or property of said person or inhabitant.

Defendant argues that the ordinance is vague such that a reasonable person cannot make a judgment as to whether his conduct is prohibited. He argues that the ordinance falls under the void for vagueness doctrine which protects citizens from arbitrary and discriminatory government enforcement. The doctrine establishes that an ordinance which forbids an act in terms so vague that a person of common intelligence must guess at its meaning and would differ as to its application is void for vagueness. Ferguson Police Officers Ass'n v. City of Ferguson, 670 S.W.2d 921, 927 (Mo.App.1984).

If an ordinance is susceptible to any reasonable construction which will sustain it, that ordinance will not be declared void for uncertainty. State ex rel. Payton v. City of Riverside, 640 S.W.2d 137, 140 (Mo.App.1982). A presumption of reasonableness attaches to ordinances enacted pursuant to a municipality's police powers. Real Estate Board v. City of Jennings, 808 S.W.2d 7, 9 (Mo.App.1991). There is also a presumption of constitutionality concerning local government ordinances. State ex. rel. Classics...