{"id":391805,"date":"2020-04-22T15:41:53","date_gmt":"2020-04-22T13:41:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=391805"},"modified":"2020-04-22T15:41:53","modified_gmt":"2020-04-22T13:41:53","slug":"cape-town-to-make-changes-to-its-nuisance-by-laws-allowing-search-and-seizures-and-impounding-without-a-warrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/property\/391805\/cape-town-to-make-changes-to-its-nuisance-by-laws-allowing-search-and-seizures-and-impounding-without-a-warrant\/","title":{"rendered":"Cape Town to make changes to its &#8216;nuisance&#8217; by-laws &#8211; allowing search and seizures, and impounding without a warrant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The City of Cape Town has published new amendments to its streets, public places and the prevention of noise nuisances by-law for public comment.<\/p>\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/openbylaws.org.za\/za-cpt\/act\/by-law\/2007\/streets-public-places-noise-nuisances\/eng\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">by-law<\/a><\/strong> relates to the management of public places, noise nuisances and other incidental matters on all properties within Cape Town, the city said.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the offences currently covered by the by-law include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Intentionally blocking traffic;<\/li>\n<li>Begging;<\/li>\n<li>Using abusive or threatening language in public;<\/li>\n<li>Relieving themselves, spitting, or performing sexual acts in public;<\/li>\n<li>Being drunk or under the influence of drugs;<\/li>\n<li>Causing a disturbance by shouting, screaming or making any other loud or persistent noise or sound;<\/li>\n<li>Permitting noise from a private residence or business to be audible in a <span id=\"trm42\" class=\"akn-term term-link\" title=\"\" data-refersto=\"#term-public_place\" data-id=\"trm42\" data-original-title=\"\">public place;<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Door-to-door collections;<\/li>\n<li>Trees on a property causing an interference or obstruction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The city said that all of its proposed changes in the new amendment relate specifically to section 22 of the by-law, which guides the city\u2019s actions on transgressions and the recovery of costs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The amendments are proposed to ensure more effective resolution of complaints from the public,&#8221; the city said in an explanatory <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.capetown.gov.za\/Media-and-news\/City%20proposes%20minor%20amendments%20to%20Streets%20and%20Public%20Places%20By-law\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">statement<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It also takes into account the amended powers that have been afforded to law enforcement officers, and expands ways in which the city can recover costs where need be.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The most notable changes which the city wants to introduce include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Instruction to leave the area<\/strong> &#8211; An authorised official may instruct a person who is in contravention of the by-law to leave and remain out of an area where a contravention taken place;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Inspections<\/strong> &#8211; An authorised official may enter or inspect any premises or business where there are reasonable grounds for believing that a provision of this by-law has been contravened, or where there has been an allegation that a provision of this by-law has been contravened;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Search and seizure<\/strong> &#8211; Without a warrant, an officer may stop, enter and search any vessel, vehicle, premises or person for a <em>prima facie<\/em> (at face value) offence in terms of this by-law occurring;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Impounding<\/strong> &#8211; An officer may, without a warrant, seize and impound any property, including but not limited to, an item, goods, equipment, vessel or a vehicle which is concerned or is on reasonable grounds believed to be concerned with the commission of an offence in terms of this by-law. The city may sell, donate or dispose of the impounded item if it is forfeited by the court a person does not claim the item.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Interested parties have until 17 May 2020 to comment. You can read the full proposed amendment below:<\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 12px auto 6px auto; font-family: Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; font-size: 14px; line-height: normal; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; -x-system-font: none; display: block;\"><a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View Cape Town by-laws on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/document\/457725260\/Cape-Town-by-laws#from_embed\">Cape Town by-laws<\/a> by <a style=\"text-decoration: underline;\" title=\"View BusinessTech's profile on Scribd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/user\/413742166\/BusinessTech#from_embed\">BusinessTech<\/a> on Scribd<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"scribd_iframe_embed\" title=\"Cape Town by-laws\" src=\"https:\/\/www.scribd.com\/embeds\/457725260\/content?start_page=1&amp;view_mode=scroll&amp;access_key=key-EqD5AVmAFkYzWJQCl00j\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-auto-height=\"true\" data-aspect-ratio=\"0.7729220222793488\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/391671\/new-proposals-for-life-after-lockdown-in-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New proposals for life after lockdown in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The City of Cape Town has published new amendments to its streets, public places and the prevention of noise nuisances by-law for public comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":93308,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12755],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-391805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-property","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391805"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":391827,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391805\/revisions\/391827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}