At issue is the town’s “orange-sticker” policy, which the plantiffs argue is unconstitutional and defamatory.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

PROVIDENCE — The Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union has asked a federal court to declare unconstitutional Narragansett’s controversial “orange-sticker” policy, intended to clamp down on college students partying in rental houses in the seaside community.

The town counters that any stigma the University of Rhode Island students and landlords may suffer by having a “nuisance” sticker plastered to their door does not deprive them of their constitutional rights.

Both sides are asking the court to rule in their favor, without a trial.

The Narragansett Town Council, in 2005, enacted an ordinance giving the police a new tool to discourage students from holding raucous parties in rental homes. It declared a public nuisance any gathering of five or more people on a private property that represents a “substantial disturbance of the quiet enjoyment … in a significant segment of a neighborhood” as a result of unlawful conduct. Examples of such conduct included excessive noise, public drunkenness and disturbing the peace.

The ordinance empowered police to place a 10-by-14-inch orange sticker on an offending house’s front door that could not be removed until the end of the school year, under threat of a financial penalty. Revisions passed in 2007 increased the penalties and mandated community service for offenders. Homeowners also face fines, putting pressure on them to make sure their tenants behave.

In September 2007, the Narragansett police determined that a house on Southwest Road, where two URI students lived, posed a public nuisance and placed an orange sticker on the door, court records show. The students contended that their eviction, months later, was because of the sticker and that one was suspended from playing in two college hockey games as a result.

The following April, three more students landed before URI’s disciplinary board after being charged with violating the ordinance. Two landlords also claimed they were not able to rent their houses because of the stickers.

In 2008, the ACLU affiliate filed suit in U.S. District Court on behalf of the URI student senate, renters and landlords, alleging that the ordinance violated the constitutional right to due process. It argued in a memorandum filed Tuesday that the wording was overly vague and gives police unfettered discretion to post orange stickers, without allowing students and landlords any recourse for challenging the alleged offense. The policy also defames and humiliates and has a negative effect on property values, wrote lawyer H. Jefferson Melish.

The town countered that the students and landlords have not been deprived of any property or liberty that merits the protection of the due-process clause. The U.S. Supreme Court, the town’s lawyers said, long settled that reputation and stigma are not sufficient to invoke due-process protection.

The plaintiffs, town lawyers Marc DeSisto and Mark A. McSally wrote in a memorandum filed Tuesday, cannot show that the injuries they suffered were “incident to” the posting of the notice. Further, they said, some vagueness may be necessary to embrace all of the ordinance’s objectives without creating “an encyclopedic and unwieldy law.”

Responses from both are due before Judge William E. Smith by July 24.

kmulvane@projo.com