[Adopted 6-22-1993 by Ord. No. 595 as
Ch. 1 of the 1993 Code]
[Amended 3-14-2016 by Ord. No. 849]
The ordinances embraced in this and the following
chapters shall be designated and cited as the "Code of the Town of
East Greenwich, Rhode Island."
In the construction of this Code and of all
ordinances hereafter enacted, the following interpretation shall be
placed on the words and phrases hereinafter mentioned, unless such
construction or interpretation shall be manifestly inconsistent with
the evident intent of the Town Council or repugnant to the context
or to the evident purport of any ordinance:
A.
CHARTER
CODE
CORPORATE LIMITS, CORPORATION LIMITS, TOWN LIMITS
COUNCIL
COUNTY
G.L.
KEEPER, PROPRIETOR
MONTH
OATH
OWNER
PERSON
PERSONAL PROPERTY
PREMISES
PRESIDENT
PROPERTY
PUBLIC PLACE
REAL PROPERTY
RESIDENCE
SEAL
SIDEWALK
STATE
STREETS, HIGHWAYS, WAYS
TENANT, OCCUPANT
TOWN
WEEK
WRITTEN, IN WRITING
YEAR
Definitions.
Refers to the Charter of the Town of East Greenwich, Rhode
Island, as printed in the Code of the Town of East Greenwich.
Refers to the Code of the Town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, as designated in § 1-1.
The legal boundary of the Town of East Greenwich.
The Town Council of the Town of East Greenwich.
The County of Kent in the State of Rhode Island.
The latest edition or reenactment of the General Laws of
Rhode Island, Reenactment of 1956.
Includes persons, firms, associations, corporations, clubs
and partnership, whether acting by themselves or through a servant,
agent or employee.
A calendar month.
Construed to include an affirmation in all cases in which,
by law, an affirmation may be substituted for an oath, and in such
cases the words "swear" and "sworn" shall be equivalent to the words
"affirm" and "affirmed."
Applied to a building or land, includes any part owner, joint
owner, tenant in common, tenant in partnership, joint tenant, or tenant
by the entirety of the whole or of a part of such building or land.
Includes a corporation, firm, partnership, association, organization,
club, society, body corporate or politic, or any other group acting
as a unit, as well as a natural person.
Includes every species of property except real property,
as herein described.
Place or places.
The President of the Town Council.
Includes real and personal property.
Includes, without limitation, any park, cemetery, schoolyard
or open space adjacent thereto, and all beaches, canals or other waterways,
and any public street or way.
Includes lands, tenements and hereditaments and rights thereto
and interests therein.
The place adopted by a person as his place of habitation,
and to which, whenever he is absent, he has the intention of returning.
When a person eats at one place and sleeps at another, the place where
such person sleeps shall be deemed his residence.
The Town or Corporate Seal.
Any portion of a street between the vertical curbline or
edge of pavement or edge of travelled way and the adjacent property
line, intended for the use of pedestrians, excluding parkways; such
portion or a sidewalk is sometimes designated and known as the pavement
"border" area.
The State of Rhode Island.
Includes public boulevards, avenues, courts, lanes, alleys,
squares, drives, roads, corners and sidewalks.
Applied to a building or land, includes any person holding
a written or oral lease of, or who occupies, the whole or a part of
such building or land, either alone or with others.
The Town of East Greenwich in the County of Kent and the
State of Rhode Island.
Seven days.
Includes any representation of words, letters or figures,
whether by printing or otherwise.
A calendar year.
B.
Word usage.
(1)
Computation of time. The time in which an act is to
be done shall be computed by excluding the first and including the
last day, except that when the last day falls on a Sunday or a legal
holiday the act may be done on the next succeeding day which is not
a Sunday or a legal holiday. When a public office in which an act
is to be performed is closed to the public for the entire day which
constitutes the last day for doing such act, or before its usual closing
time on such day, then such act may be performed on the next succeeding
day which is not a Sunday or legal holiday.
(2)
Delegation of authority. Whenever a provision appears
requiring the head of a department or other officer of the Town to
do some act or to make certain inspections, it is to be construed
to authorize the head of the department or other officer of the Town,
as the case may be, to designate, delegate and authorize subordinates
to perform the required act or make the required inspection, unless
the terms of the provision or section designate otherwise.
(3)
Gender. A word importing the masculine gender only
shall extend and be applied to females and to firms, partnerships
and corporations as well as to males.
(4)
Interpretation. In the interpretation and application
of any provision of this Code, it shall be held to be the minimum
requirements adopted for the promotion of the public health, safety,
comfort, convenience and general welfare. Where any provision of the
Code imposes greater restrictions upon the subject matter than the
general provision imposed by the Code, the provision imposing the
greater restriction or regulation shall be deemed to be controlling.
(5)
Joint authority. All words giving a joint authority
to three or more persons or officers shall be construed as giving
such authority to a majority of such persons or officers.
(6)
Name of officer. Whenever the name of an officer is
given it shall be construed as though the words "of the Town of East
Greenwich" were added.
(7)
Nontechnical and technical words. Words and phrases
shall be construed according to the common and approved usage of the
language, but technical words and phrases and such others as may have
acquired a peculiar and appropriate meaning in law shall be construed
and understood according to such meaning.
(8)
Number. A word importing the singular number only
may extend and be applied to several persons and things as well as
to one person and thing.
(9)
Or/and. "Or" may be read "and," and "and" may be read
"or," if the sense requires it.
(10)
Preceding/following. The words "preceding" and "following"
shall mean next before and next after, respectively.
(11)
Signature, subscription. The signature or subscription
of a person shall include a mark when the person cannot write.
(12)
Tense. Words used in the past or present tense include
the future as well as the past and present.
The catchlines of the several sections of this
Code printed in boldface type, the history notes, and the references
scattered throughout the Code shall not be deemed or taken to be a
substantive part of any section nor, unless expressly so provided,
shall they be so deemed when any of such sections, including the catchlines,
are amended or reenacted.
A.
The repeal of an ordinance shall not revive any ordinances
in force before or at the time the ordinance repealed took effect.
B.
The repeal of an ordinance shall not affect any punishment
or penalty incurred before the repeal took effect, nor any suit, prosecution
or proceeding pending at the time of the repeal for an offense committed
or cause of action arising under the ordinances repealed.
It is hereby declared to be the intention of
the Town Council that the sections, paragraphs, sentences, clauses
and phrases of this Code are severable, and if any phrase, clause,
sentence, paragraph or section of this Code shall be declared unconstitutional,
invalid or unenforceable by the valid judgment or decree of any court
of competent jurisdiction, such unconstitutionality, invalidity or
unenforceability shall not affect any of the remaining phrases, clauses,
sentences, paragraphs and sections of the Code, since such part of
the Code would have been enacted by the Town Council without the incorporation
in this Code of any unconstitutional phrase, clause, sentence, paragraph
or section.
A.
All ordinances passed subsequent to this Code which
amend, repeal or in any way affect this Code may be numbered in accordance
with the numbering system of this Code and printed for inclusion therein,
or in the case of repealed chapters, sections and subsections or any
part thereof, by subsequent ordinances, such repealed portions may
be excluded from the Code by omission thereof from reprinted pages
affected thereby, and the subsequent ordinances as numbered and printed
or omitted, in the case of repeal, shall be prima facie evidence of
such subsequent ordinances until such time that this Code and subsequent
ordinances numbered or omitted are readopted as a new code of ordinances
by the Town Council.
B.
Amendments to any of the provisions of this Code should
be made by amending such provisions by specific reference to the section
of the Code in substantially the following language: "That section
_____ of the Charter and Code of the Town of East Greenwich, Rhode
Island, is hereby amended to read as follows: (Set out new provisions
in full)."
C.
If a new section not heretofore existing in the Code
is to be added, the following language may be used: "That the Charter
and Code of the Town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, is hereby amended
by adding a section (or article, chapter or other designation, as
the case may be), to be numbered _____, which reads as follows: (Set
out new provisions in full)."
D.
In lieu of the foregoing subsection, when the Town
Council desires to enact an ordinance of a general and permanent nature
embracing a subject not previously existing in the Code, which the
Town Council desires to incorporate into the Code, a provision in
substantially the following language may be made a part of the ordinance:
"It is the intention of the Town Council, and it is hereby ordained,
that the provisions of this ordinance shall become and be made part
of the Charter and Code of the Town of East Greenwich, Rhode Island,
and the sections of this ordinance may be renumbered to accomplish
such intention."
E.
All sections, articles, chapters or other provisions
of this Code desired to be repealed should be specifically repealed
by section number, article number, chapter or other number, as the
case may be.
The Town Clerk shall number all ordinances consecutively
in the order of their adoption.
A.
By contract or by Town personnel, supplements to this
Code shall be prepared and printed whenever authorized or directed
by the Town Council. A supplement to the Code shall include all substantive
permanent and general parts of ordinances passed by the Town Council
or adopted by initiative and referendum during the period covered
by the supplement and all changes made thereby in the Code. The pages
of a supplement shall be so numbered that they will fit properly into
the Code and will, where necessary, replace pages which have become
obsolete or partially obsolete, and the new pages shall be so prepared
that, when they have been inserted, the Code will be current through
the date of the adoption of the latest ordinance included in the supplement.
B.
In the preparation of a supplement to this Code, all
portions of the Code which have been repealed shall be excluded from
the Code by the omission thereof from reprinted pages.
C.
When preparing a supplement to this Code, the codifier
(meaning the person, agency or organization authorized to prepare
the supplement) may make formal, nonsubstantive changes in ordinances
and parts of ordinances included in the supplement, insofar as it
is necessary to do so to embody them into a unified Code. For example,
the codifier may:
(1)
Organize the ordinance material into appropriate subdivisions;
(2)
Provide appropriate catchlines, headings and titles
for sections and other subdivisions of the Code printed in the supplement,
and make changes in such catchlines, headings and titles;
(3)
Assign appropriate numbers to sections and other subdivisions
to be inserted in the Code and, where necessary to accommodate new
material, change existing section or other subdivision numbers;
(4)
Change the words "this ordinance" or words of the
same meaning to "this chapter," "this article," etc., as the case
may be, or to "sections _____ to _____" (inserting section numbers
to indicate the sections of the Code which embody the substantive
sections of the ordinance incorporated into the Code); and
(5)
Make other nonsubstantive changes necessary to preserve
the original meaning of ordinance sections inserted into the Code,
but in no case shall the codifier make any change in the meaning or
effect of ordinance material included in the supplement or already
embodied in the Code.
A.
Nothing in this Code or the ordinance adopting this
Code shall be construed to repeal or otherwise affect the validity
of any of the following when not inconsistent with this Code:
(1)
Any ordinance promising or guaranteeing the payment
of money by the Town, or authorizing the issuance of any bonds of
the Town, or any evidence of the Town's indebtedness, or any contract,
agreement, lease, deed or other instrument or obligation assumed by
the Town or creating interest and sinking funds;
(2)
Any right or franchise, permit or other right granted
by any ordinance;
(3)
Any personnel regulations; any ordinance or resolution
establishing salaries of Town officers and employees or civil service
rules;
(4)
Any ordinance dedicating, naming, establishing, locating,
relocating, opening, paving, widening, repairing or vacating any street,
alley or other public way in the Town;
(5)
Any ordinance establishing and prescribing the street
grades in the Town;
(6)
Any appropriation ordinance or any ordinance levying
or imposing taxes;
(7)
Any ordinance providing for local improvements and
assessing taxes therefor;
(8)
Any ordinance dedicating or accepting any plat or
subdivision in the Town;
(9)
Any ordinance establishing the official plat of the
Town;
(10)
Any Zoning Map amendment or land use, rezoning or
Zoning Ordinance;
(11)
Any ordinance annexing territory or excluding territory
from the Town;
(12)
Any ordinance prescribing traffic regulations for
specific locations, prescribing through streets, parking limitations,
parking prohibitions, one-way traffic, limitations on loads of vehicles
or loading zones, not inconsistent with such Code;
(13)
Any subdivision ordinance;
(14)
Any ordinance creating special districts or assessing
taxes therefor;
(15)
Any ordinance granting specific tax exemptions;
(16)
Any temporary or special ordinance;
(17)
Any administrative ordinance.
B.
All such ordinances are herby recognized as continuing
in full force and effect to the same extent as if set out at length
in this Code.
It shall be unlawful for any person in the Town to change or amend by additions or deletions any part or portion of this Code, or to insert or delete pages or portions thereof, or to alter or tamper with such Code in any manner whatsoever which will cause the law of the Town to be misrepresented thereby. Any person violating this section shall be punished as provided in Article III, General Penalty, of this chapter.
In all cases where the same offense may be made
punishable or shall be created by different clauses or sections of
the ordinances of the Town, the prosecuting officer may elect under
which to proceed, but not more than one recovery shall be had against
the same person for the same offense.