DALEY OPEN TO MARIJUANA TICKETS

Mayor, Cops Agree That Fines Are Better Than Case Dismissals

Mayor Richard Daley voiced support Tuesday for a police officer's
proposal to ticket people caught with small amounts of marijuana
instead of prosecuting them in court.

"If 99 percent of the cases are thrown out and we have police officers
going [to court], why?" Daley asked. "It costs you a lot of money for
police officers to go to court. ... You have to look at that ... proposal."

Officer Thomas Donegan, frustrated at dismissals of his minor drug
arrests, recently sent a letter to Police Supt. Philip Cline
suggesting the new approach and contending that guilty findings would
be easier and fine revenues would be generated if offenders simply
were issued citations.

"Sometimes a fine is [better] than being thrown out of court," Daley
said. "Thrown out of court means nothing. Many times the offenders
don't even show up anyway."

Daley, who commented at a City Hall news conference urging property
owners to claim deductions owed them, also endorsed a new crackdown by
public school officials and the Cook County state's attorney's office
on parents of chronically truant children.

For the first time in years, a Chicago parent faces charges for
truancy in the case of a son who has missed almost 200 days of school
in two years, even as officials consider charges in other cases.

"Why do we have a 9-year-old or 12-year-old not going to school,
basically destroying their lives?" Daley asked. "What responsibility
does the parent have?

"Maybe they don't want their children," the mayor said. "Shouldn't
society reach out to that child and say, 'We don't want you to go to
prison, to County Hospital as the victim of a crime. We don't want to
go to your funeral'?"

Daley suggested that parents who care so little they don't ensure
school attendance should forfeit custody.

"If they want to give their child up, give the child up," the mayor
said. "Someone maybe can do a better job with that child."

On another issue, meanwhile, Daley said he did not know whether a
long-awaited ordinance mandating sprinklers in older commercial
high-rises will be ready for consideration at next Wednesday's City
Council meeting after months of discussion and debate.

But Ald. Bernard Stone (50th), chairman of the council's Buildings
Committee, said that the city's Law Department continues to fine-tune
the proposal. A revamped measure is expected to be ready for
introduction to his committee on Thursday but probably will not be
considered for passage until October's council meeting, he said.

The Mikva Commission, which investigated the fire at 69 W. Washington
St. that claimed six lives last October, concluded that if the
high-rise had been equipped with sprinklers or had stairwell doors
that automatically unlocked in a fire, none of the deaths would have
occurred.