Panel votes to allow ATV stops without cause

Rebekah Metzler

AUGUSTA — The state Legislature's Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee voted Tuesday in favor of a measure that would allow game wardens to stop all-terrain vehicles on private property without cause.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Ralph Sarty, R-Denmark, passed by a vote of 7-6.

An incident in 2007, in which an ATV operator was stopped without a "reasonable and articulable" reason but was charged with operating under the influence, led to a Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruling in August 2009 that said the game warden's actions were allowed. That decision overruled a lower court's ruling.

The Legislature passed a law last year that would have forced law enforcement to have a "reasonable and articulable suspicion" that a law has been broken before stopping ATV operators. That law has been in effect since September 2009.

Now, a majority of members of the IF&W panel favor reversing that policy.

"For me, I'm an avid ATV-er and I also own 20 acres of land and we have ATVs that come through," said state Rep. Sheryl Briggs, D-Mexico, a committee member who voted in support of the latest legislation. "I feel it's very important that you monitor all the trails and where all the people are. I just feel more comfortable with this and I feel the general public would feel the same."

The legislation will be scheduled for further debate and votes in the House and Senate in the coming weeks.

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Source: http://www.sunjournal.com/node/791577

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