6505-S

AN ACT Relating to public transit facility security; amending RCW 7.48.140, 9.66.010, 9.91.025, and 7.48.020; creating a new section; and prescribing penalties.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. The legislature finds that it is important to the general welfare to protect and preserve public safety in the operation of public transportation facilities and vehicles, in order to protect the personal safety of both passengers and employees. The legislature further finds that public transportation facilities and services will be utilized more fully by the general public if they are assured of personal safety and security in the utilization.

The legislature recognizes that cities, towns, counties, public transportation benefit areas, and other municipalities that offer public transportation services have the independent authority to adopt regulations, rules, and guidelines that regulate conduct in public transportation vehicles and facilities to protect and preserve the public safety in the operation of the vehicles and facilities. The legislature finds that this act is not intended to limit the independent authority to regulate conduct by these municipalities. The legislature, however, further finds that this act is necessary to provide state-wide guidelines that regulate conduct in public transportation vehicles and facilities to further enhance the independent regulatory authority of cities, towns, counties, public transportation benefit areas, and any other municipalities that offer public transportation services.

Sec. 2. RCW 7.48.140 and 1955 c 237 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:

It is a public nuisance:

(1) To cause or suffer the carcass of any animal or any offal, filth, or noisome substance to be collected, deposited, or to remain in any place to the prejudice of others;

(2) To throw or deposit any offal or other offensive matter, or the carcass of any dead animal, in any watercourse, stream, lake, pond, spring, well, or common sewer, street, or public highway, or in any manner to corrupt or render unwholesome or impure the water of any such spring, stream, pond, lake, or well, to the injury or prejudice of others;

(3) To obstruct or impede, without legal authority, the passage of any river, harbor, or collection of water;

(4) To obstruct or encroach upon public highway, private ways, streets, alleys, commons, landing places, and ways to burying places or to unlawfully obstruct or impede the flow of municipal transit vehicles as defined in RCW 46.04.355 or passenger traffic, access to municipal transit vehicles or stations as defined in RCW 9.91.025(2)(a), or otherwise interfere with the provision or use of public transportation services, or obstruct or impede a municipal transit driver, operator, or supervisor in the performance of that individual's duties;

(5) To carry on the business of manufacturing gun powder, nitroglycerine, or other highly explosive substance, or mixing or grinding the materials therefor, in any building within fifty rods of any valuable building erected at the time such business may be commenced;

(6) To establish powder magazines near incorporated cities or towns, at a point different from that appointed by the corporate authorities of such city or town; or within fifty rods of any occupied dwelling house;

(7) To erect, continue, or use any building, or other place, for the exercise of any trade, employment, or manufacture, which, by occasioning obnoxious exhalations, offensive smells, or otherwise is offensive or dangerous to the health of individuals or of the public;

(8) To suffer or maintain on one's own premises, or upon the premises of another, or to permit to be maintained on one's own premises, any place where wines, spirituous, fermented, malt, or other intoxicating liquors are kept for sale or disposal to the public in contravention of law;

(9) For an owner or occupier of land, knowing of the existence of a well, septic tank, cesspool, or other hole or excavation ten inches or more in width at the top and four feet or more in depth, to fail to cover, fence or fill the same, or provide other proper and adequate safeguards: PROVIDED, That this section shall not apply to a hole one hundred square feet or more in area or one that is open, apparent, and obvious.

Every person who has the care, government, management, or control of any building, structure, powder magazine, or any other place mentioned in this section shall, for the purposes of this section, be taken and deemed to be the owner or agent of the owner or owners of such building, structure, powder magazine or other place, and, as such, may be proceeded against for erecting, contriving, causing, continuing, or maintaining such nuisance.

Sec. 3. RCW 9.66.010 and 1971 ex.s. c 280 s 22 are each amended to read as follows:

A public nuisance is a crime against the order and economy of the state. Every place

(1) Wherein any fighting between ((~~men~~)) people or animals or birds shall be conducted; or,

(2) Wherein any intoxicating liquors are kept for unlawful use, sale or distribution; or,

(3) Where vagrants resort; and

Every act unlawfully done and every omission to perform a duty, which act or omission

(1) Shall annoy, injure or endanger the safety, health, comfort, or repose of any considerable number of persons; or,

(2) Shall offend public decency; or,

(3) Shall unlawfully interfere with, befoul, obstruct, or tend to obstruct, or render dangerous for passage, a lake, navigable river, bay, stream, canal or basin, or a public park, square, street, alley ((or)), highway, or municipal transit vehicle or station; or,

(4) Shall in any way render a considerable number of persons insecure in life or the use of property;

Shall be a public nuisance.

Sec. 4. RCW 9.91.025 and 1992 c 77 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:

(1) A person is guilty of unlawful bus conduct if while on or in a municipal transit vehicle as defined by RCW 46.04.355 or in or at a municipal transit station and with knowledge that such conduct is prohibited, he or she:

(a) Except while in or at a municipal transit station, smokes or carries a lighted or smoldering pipe, cigar, or cigarette; ((or))

(b) Discards litter other than in designated receptacles; ((or))

(c) Plays any radio, recorder, or other sound-producing equipment except that nothing herein shall prohibit the use of such equipment when connected to earphones that limit the sound to individual listeners or the use of a communication device by an employee of the owner or operator of the municipal transit vehicle or municipal transit station; ((or))

(d) Spits or expectorates; ((or))

(e) Carries any flammable liquid, explosive, acid, or other article or material likely to cause harm to others except that nothing herein shall prevent a person from carrying a cigarette, cigar, or pipe lighter or carrying a firearm or ammunition in a way that is not otherwise prohibited by law; ((or))

(f) Intentionally obstructs or impedes the flow of municipal transit vehicles or passenger traffic, hinders or prevents access to municipal transit vehicles or stations, or otherwise unlawfully interferes with the provision or use of public transportation services;

(g) Intentionally disturbs others by engaging in loud ((or)), raucous, unruly, harmful, or harassing behavior; or

(h) Destroys, defaces, or otherwise damages property of a municipality as defined in RCW 35.58.272 employed in the provision or use of public transportation services.

(2) For the purposes of this section, "municipal transit station" means all facilities, structures, lands, interest in lands, air rights over lands, and rights of way of all kinds that are owned, leased, held, or used by a ((~~public agency~~)) municipality as defined in RCW 35.58.272 for the purpose of providing public transportation services, including, but not limited to, park and ride lots, transit centers and tunnels, and bus shelters.

(3) Unlawful bus conduct is a misdemeanor.

Sec. 5. RCW 7.48.020 and 1891 c 50 s 1 are each amended to read as follows:

Such action may be brought by any person whose property is, or whose patrons or employees are, injuriously affected or whose personal enjoyment is lessened by the nuisance. If judgment be given for the plaintiff in such action, he or she may, in addition to the execution to enforce the same, on motion, have an order allowing a warrant to issue to the sheriff to abate and to deter or prevent the resumption of such nuisance. Such motion shall be allowed, of course, unless it appear on the hearing that the nuisance has ceased, or that such remedy is inadequate to abate or prevent the continuance of the nuisance, in which latter case the plaintiff may have the defendant enjoined.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. If any provision of this act or its application to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of the act or the application of the provision to other persons or circumstances is not affected.