Chicago City Council committee to take up Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s changes to curfew for minors

CHICAGO (WLS) — Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s plan to extent the citywide curfew for minors will go before the Chicago City Council’s Public Safety Committee Friday.

Earlier this week, Mayor Lightfoot issued an executive order to change the curfew for minors, moving it from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The plan to put that into city code will go before the City Council Public Safety Committee Friday.

Chicago curfew for minors goes into effect; ACLU pushes back

The mayor’s curfew for minors 12 years of age and older prohibits them from remaining in any public place or on the premises of any establishment within the city between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. on all seven days of the week.

The mayor now wants to make that a long-lasting municipal code instead of just an executive order. The City Council will ultimately have to sign off on that.

But there could be challenges contending the proposed ordinance is unconstitutional.

“Most courts who have weighed in on curfews have concluded that they are constitutional and this is based on a long existing ordinance in Chicago relating to curfew, so I suspect it would withstand any challenge the constitutionality,” Gill Soffer, ABC7 Legal Analyst, said.

Millennium Park restrictions issued by Mayor Lightfoot take effect

The mayor also imposed new restrictions at Millennium Park, which started Thursday night.

From Thursday through Sunday, unaccompanied minors are not allowed in Millennium Park after 6 p.m. unless they’re with at least one responsible adult.

The mayor announced the measure after violence broke out last weekend. Crowds of young people gathered in the Loop and a 16-year-old boy was shot and killed near the “Bean” sculpture.