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Miscellaneous Offenses
The following are covered under miscellaneous offenses:
- Disorderly houses or houses of ill fame
- Gambling
- Disturbances
- School trespassing
- Indecent or lewd behavior
- Discharge of firearms
- Fire hydrant tampering
- Burning
- Eat and run
- Cigarette vending machines
- Loitering
- Noise
- Littering and handbills
- Paintball guns
Chapter 28: Miscellaneous Offenses
Article I. In General
No person shall keep or maintain within the township a disorderly house or a house of ill fame, or allow or permit any house, shop, store or other building owned or occupied to be used as a disorderly house or house of ill fame to be frequented or resorted to by riotous or disorderly persons, prostitutes, gamblers or vagrants.
(Revised Ordinance (RO) 1979, Section 18-2)
No person shall:
- Set up or maintain or permit to be kept or maintained in any house or premises, public or private, within the township, any faro table, faro bank, roulette wheel, slot machine, writing game or other device or game of chance; or
- Play or engage in faro, roulette or any other game of chance either as banker, player, dealer or otherwise for the purpose of gaming within the township.
(RO 1979, Section 18-3)
No person shall:
- Make or assist in making any improper noise, riot, disturbance or breach of peace in the streets, highways or other public places within the township;
- In company with others, collect in groups or crowds to the annoyance or disturbance of others; or
- Suffer or take part in any drunken, riotous or other disorderly conduct that shall disturb the peace and quiet of any other person.
(RO 1979, Section 18-5)
No person shall:
- Enter any building or go upon lands belonging to the board of education of the township, or used and occupied for school purposes, and break, injure or deface the building or any part thereof, or the structures belonging to or connected with the building or land; or
- Disturb the exercises of the school, or molest or give annoyance to the children attending the school, or any teacher therein.
(RO 1979, Section 18-7)
No person shall:
- Appear on any street or public place in the state of nudity; or
- Make any indecent exposure of his or her person, or commit or do any lewd or indecent act, or behave in a lewd or indecent manner.
(RO 1979, Section 18-8)
- No person shall discharge any gun, pistol, firearm or other weapon within the limits of the township except for the protection of life or property.
- Nothing in this section shall be deemed to apply to any premises authorized by the police department for target practice, or trap shooting, or the use and discharge of any firearm or weapon by any person, officer or official authorized pursuant to the laws of this state or of the United States, or pursuant to the ordinances of the township.
(RO 1979, Section 18-10)
- No person shall tamper with, injure, deface, destroy or remove any fire hydrant located within the township. No person, other than an authorized employee of the township, the Dover Water Company or the township fire department shall open or use a fire hydrant without previous official written permission.
- Any person, including any corporation, found guilty of violating this section shall be subject to punishment in accordance with section 1-7. A separate offense shall be deemed committed on each day during or on which a violation occurs or continues.
(RO 1979, Section 18-13.1)
No person shall make or ignite or cause to be made or ignited any fire or burn or cause to be burned any refuse, debris, material or substance or combination thereof whereby the smoke, fumes, odors, ashes, soot or particles of matter emitted are permitted to blow, flow or fall upon or over property of another to the detriment of the health, welfare or comfort of any person.
(RO 1979, Section 18-14)
Cross references: Fire prevention and protection, chapter 20; solid waste management, chapter 42.
No person shall obtain credit, accommodations, food or service at any restaurant, hotel, inn or boardinghouse by means of any false pretense, or with the intent to defraud the proprietor thereof, agent or servant, or to obtain any credit or accommodations at such place without paying therefor.
(RO 1979, Section 18-17)
- Prohibited. All cigarette vending machines are hereby prohibited in the township. Any person owning, operating, renting or permitting the use of a cigarette vending machine on premises under such person's control shall be subject to punishment as set forth in section 1-7.
- Enforcement. The police department of the township and the health department of the township are hereby authorized to enforce the provisions of this section.
(Ordinance Number 9-95, Section 1, 3-21-95)
Article II. Loitering
- No person shall loiter in a public place in such a manner as to:
- Create or cause to be created a danger of a breach of the peace;
- Create or cause to be created any disturbance or annoyance to the comfort and repose of any person;
- Obstruct the free passage of pedestrians or vehicles; or
- Obstruct, molest or interfere with any person lawfully in any public place, as defined in section 26-41.
- This section shall include the making of unsolicited remarks of an offensive, disgusting or insulting nature or which are calculated to annoy or disturb the person to whom, or in whose hearing, they are made.
(RO 1979, Section 18-20)
State law references: Disorderly conduct, New Jersey Statutes Annotated 2C:33-2.
- Whenever any police officer shall, in the exercise of reasonable judgment, decide that the presence of any person in any public place is causing or is likely to cause any of the conditions enumerated in section 28-43. If deemed necessary for the preservation of the public peace and safety, order that person to leave that place.
- Any person who shall refuse to leave after being ordered to do so by a police officer shall be guilty of a violation of this article.
(RO 1979, Section 18-21)
Article III. Noise
No person shall, for advertising purposes or for other purposes or for the purpose of attracting the attention of the passing public, play, use, operate or permit to be played, used or operated any radio receiving set, television set, musical instrument, phonograph, loudspeaker, sound amplifier, or other machine or device for the producing or reproducing of sound on the streets or public places of the township, or in any place where the sound therefrom is cast directly upon the streets or public places, or which is so placed and operated that the sound therefrom can be heard to the annoyance or inconvenience of travelers upon any street or public place, or of persons in neighboring premises, without first having obtained a permit from the township council.
(RO 1979, Section 18-23)
Land development ordinance reference - Noise, Section 15-49.12.
Article VI. Littering & Handbills
- No person shall sweep into or deposit in any gutter, street or other public place the accumulation of litter from any building or lot or from any public or private sidewalk or driveway.
- No person who owns or occupies a place of business shall sweep into or deposit in any gutter, street or other public place the litter from any building or lot or from any public or private sidewalk or driveway.
- All litter must be collected and properly containerized for disposal.
(RO 1979, Section 17-3)
- Every person who owns or occupies property shall keep the sidewalk in front of the premises free of litter.
- Every person who owns or occupies a place of business shall keep the sidewalk in front of the business premises free of litter.
- The owner, tenant or occupant referred to in subsections (a) and (b) of this section shall be guilty of a violation of this section if such owner, tenant or occupant had actual notice of the presence of the litter and failed or refused to correct the condition within a reasonable time thereafter, or if the litter remained on the premises or on the sidewalk in front of the premises for a sufficiently long period of time to give rise to constructive notice of its presence.
(RO 1979, Section 17-4)
- No person shall throw or deposit any commercial or noncommercial handbill in or upon any sidewalk, street or other public place.
- No person shall hand out or distribute or sell any commercial handbill in any public place; provided, however, that it shall not be deemed unlawful for any person to hand out or distribute, without charge to the receiver thereof, in any sidewalk, street or other public place, any noncommercial handbill to any person willing to accept it.
(RO 1979, Section 17-9)
No person shall throw or deposit any handbill in or upon any vehicle; provided, however, that it shall not be unlawful for a person to hand out or distribute, without charge to the receiver thereof, in any public place, a noncommercial handbill to any occupant of a vehicle who is willing to accept it.
(RO 1979, Section 17-10)
Cross references: Traffic and vehicles, chapter 48.
No person shall throw, deposit or distribute any handbill in or upon any private premises:
- If requested by anyone in or upon such premises not to do so; or
- If there is placed on the premises, in a conspicuous position near the entrance thereof, a sign bearing the words "No Trespassing," "No Peddlers or Agents" or "No Advertisement," or any similar notice indicating that the occupants of the premises do not desire to be molested or have their right of privacy disturbed, or to have any such handbills left upon such premises.
(RO 1979, Section 17-12)
No person shall throw, deposit or distribute any handbill in or upon private premises which are inhabited, except by handing or transmitting such handbill directly to the owner, occupant or other person then present, except as otherwise provided in this section. A person, unless requested by anyone upon the premises not to do so, may place or deposit any such handbill in or upon inhabited private premises, if the premises are not posted as provided in section 28-156 and the handbill is placed or deposited so as to secure or prevent it from being blown or drifted about the premises or sidewalks, streets or other public places or private premises. Mailboxes may not be so used when prohibited by federal postal law or regulations. The provisions of this section shall not apply to the distribution of mail by the United States, or to newspapers; provided, however, that newspapers shall be placed on private premises in such a manner as to prevent their being carried or deposited by the elements upon any street, sidewalk or any other public place or upon private property.
(RO 1979, Section 17-13)
No person shall post or affix any notice, poster or other paper or device, calculated to attract the attention of the public, to any lamppost, public utility pole or shade tree, or upon any public structure or building, or upon any official traffic control device as defined in NJSA 39:1-1, except as may be authorized or required by law.
(RO 1979, Section 17-15)
Article VIII. Paintball Guns
- The possession of a loaded paintball gun, or use of a paintball gun against persons, property, or animals, on municipal land including municipal trails within the township is prohibited.
- The use of a paintball gun against persons, property, or animals, in a quasi-public place within the township is prohibited.
- The discharge of a paintball gun in or about private property including but not limited to any private picnic grounds, roads, parking lots, or other private property within the township shall be performed only with consent of the property owner or person in charge of said property. Any and all paintball gun discharges shall be performed in a manner that ensures that the trajectory endpoint of all paintballs and their associated paint splatter are confined within the limits of the boundary of the private property wherein discharged.
(Ordinance Number 20-04, Section 2, 6-3-2004)