Lancaster Tells Parents to Pay Curfew Charge : Juveniles: The measure will try to recoup the cost of detaining and transporting teen-agers who loiter past 10 p.m.

LANCASTER — It’s 10 p.m. Do you know where your teen-ager is?

If not, it could cost you a bundle.

Hoping to curb youthful vandalism and other crimes, the Lancaster City Council approved a measure Monday that makes parents pay up to $700 or more when sheriff’s deputies catch their children breaking the citywide curfew of 10 p.m.

Under the new law, parents of repeat offenders would be billed for the cost--about $200, possibly more--for sheriff’s deputies to detain, process and then transport their teen-agers home. That fee would be added to an already-established $500 court fine for violating the curfew.

“I have an expectation and a responsibility as a parent to know where my teen-ager is,” said Councilman George Runner, father of an 18-year-old. “I think that there is a renewed feeling that has been enabled now through new legislation to shift responsibility to parents where they’ve been shielded a bit in the past.”

The curfew law forbids anyone younger than 18 from loitering in a public place between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. Youths who have legitimate reasons for being out--working a late job, driving home from a movie theater--are not considered in violation of the curfew, but teen-agers merely loitering outside fast-food restaurants or in local parks are liable to citation and detention.

Lancaster officials hope their toughened law will avert crimes like the after-curfew shooting of a 16-year-old boy at a local Taco Bell restaurant in 1991. The restaurant’s parking lot had become a late-night gathering place for young people.

Since the shooting, Lancaster has begun a series of curfew sweeps that target problem locations and result in as many as 70 youths being cited or stopped by sheriff’s deputies during each sweep.

Civil libertarians have criticized curfew laws as vehicles for authorities to harass young people who are simply gathering in a public place after dark. But Runner said the new city measure will help cut down on juvenile crime by spurring parents to pay greater attention to their youngsters’ late-night activities.

“This is another one of these tools that we can add to our arsenal,” said Runner at the council meeting. “Society says, ‘Thou shalt parent,’ but some will choose not to.”

Lancaster’s curfew sweeps can be expensive, however, with deputies earning as much as $40 overtime an hour, according to sheriff’s officials. The Sheriff’s Department can bill the city for such special actions in addition to the department’s regular duties, Mayor Frank C. Roberts said.

Runner said the new measure will help defray such expenses, although city officials have no forecast of how much money it will generate.

Under the new law, parents and guardians can ask the city to waive the fee if they can show they do not have the funds to pay. A parent or guardian could also be excused “upon determination that the person has made reasonable efforts to exercise supervision and control over the minor.”

One issue that remains unresolved is how much parents of children visiting Lancaster from distant places like Long Beach or Orange County would have to pay. City Atty. David McEwen told the council most youths in that category would simply be returned to the family they were visiting.

Lancaster’s measure is the latest in a series of measures in the Antelope Valley aimed at holding parents responsible for the wrongdoing of their children.

The Lancaster council Monday also approved a special lien, or charge, that could be assessed against the property of parents whose youngsters are caught scrawling graffiti. The city could then recoup funds spent eradicating the vandals’ handiwork.

Last month, trustees of the Antelope Valley Union High School District voted to increase rewards in the student crime-tip program to as much as $1,000 for those who turn in vandals. Parents are now responsible for paying for the damage and for the reward.