City Council Targets 'Disorderly' Tenements
A new ordinance aims to clear out homes deemed a public nuisance based on the 'customs and habits' of residents.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An Ordinance declaring all wash-houses or tenements of whatever nature, conducted in a noisy or disorderly manner, or producing offensive odors, or the surroundings of which are filthy and unclean, or inhabited by persons whose customs, habits and mode of living are such as to be detrimental to public health or convenience or comfort, and such occupants thereof a public nuisance, and providing for the abatement thereof. The city marshal is empowered to enforce this, and violators face fines up to $50 per day.
“It shall be unlawful for any one owning or controlling any building... to lease such building... to persons who conduct same in a noisy or disorderly manner, or whose customs, habits and mode of living are such as to be detrimental to public health.”
This ordinance reflects a common 19th-century practice of using health and 'nuisance' codes to target specific ethnic communities—particularly Chinese residents—by codifying their 'modes of living' as inherently detrimental to public health.
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