Leagly detecting in parks in Little Rock

[millerpony]

I called a man in the city government system that has to do with the parks and asked if there were laws against detecting. I was told that no there wasn't but if a policeman saw me taking what I found it was within the officers authority to give me a citation for removing what I had found in the ground because everything in the park on top or under the ground belongs to the city and that is theft of city property.

 

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[Silverfinder99]

Hi there, what part of Little Rock are you in? I live up in Gravel Ridge. I've hunted Burns park countless times with never an issue with the cops. Never heard of what you're talking about and I doubt any of the officers have either. Personally I think they've got way more important things to worry about than someone harmlessly enjoying a hobby. But hey, have some fun with it. If a cop does threaten to cite you for theft of public property ( which I seriously doubt will ever happen) show him your bag of trash and offer to go put every piece of it back where you found it.
If you're ever interested in getting together for a hunt just PM me.

 

[Jason in Enid]

That's BS. You can't be ticketed for that. Ask him for the city code where you can be ticketed for picking up something off the ground.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Oh I love it!! Another case of asking "can I detect?" and getting great things morphed to fit the person's "pressing question". Welcome to the club Miller-pony: You are the now the latest member of the "No one cared ... TILL you asked" club. In other words, it's just as Jason and Silver-finder99 say: No one cared. And as you can see, silver-finder apparently has no problems. Yup, even "taking" those priceless pennies and dimes he found. Gulp, I bet you some of them may have even been silver or wheat pennies. Oh no! Say it isn't so!!

Jason, the sad thing is the bored desk-bound bureaucrat who answered miller-pony with an answer like that, could probably, given enough legal wranglings and semantics, be a true statement. Afterall: let's say you or miller-pony went and harvest all the roses out of the rose garden in the park, to sell at the local flea market, .... then you KNOW you'd be in violation of the prohibitions of "collecting", or "taking" and so forth. Right? Hence why is a mercury dime or gold ring any different? And even if you could try to say that gold ring didn't belong to the city (and instead belonged to the person who lost it), well then duh, now your simply in violation of your state's lost & found laws. IT NEVER ENDS!! No matter how you slice it, you're going to be in violation of SOMETHING, if you asked long enough, and hard enough, of enough bored desk-bound bureaucrats and lawyers.

Millerpony, in the future, do NOT go asking city clerks "can I?" type questions. Instead, look it up for yourself. If you see nothing there saying "no metal detecting", then presto, it must not be prohibited. And if you want to worry about all this ancillary periphery stuff applying (collecting, taking, alterations, lost & found, property laws, defacement, IRS tax codes, cultural heritage, harming earthworms, etc...), then I have some advice for you: take up another hobby.

 

[Silverfinder99]

I called a man in the city government system that has to do with the parks and asked if there were laws against detecting. I was told that no there wasn't but if a policeman saw me taking what I found it was within the officers authority to give me a citation for removing what I had found in the ground because everything in the park on top or under the ground belongs to the city and that is theft of city property.

I did forget to mention, STAY OFF OF ANY PUBLIC PROPERTY IN JACKSONVILLE!!!! I REPEAT, STAY OFF!
Jacksonville does have a city ordinance prohibiting metal detecting on all public property, including, parks, schools, sidewalks, municipal buildings ect. It's a stupid ordinance and they do enforce it. Private property though is still private property and its fair game with the owners permission.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Hey silver-finder, do you know why Jacksonville probably has that in their muni code ? Probably because someone went and asked " can i metal detect?". And thus they had to invent a rule to address that "pressing question".

 

[Silverfinder99]

Hey silver-finder, do you know why Jacksonville probably has that in their muni code ? Probably because someone went and asked " can i metal detect?". And thus they had to invent a rule to address that "pressing question".

Ya that and Jacksonville is also a small city who thinks they have something "really" special to protect since they had a small civil war skirmish about ten mile outside the city limits. Because of that they think they've got buried treasure over the entire city. If only they spent as much time worrying about cleaning up all the ghetto areas in the city as they do keeping people from enjoying a perfectly safe and harmless hobby it might actually be a descent city to live in. But you know how it goes, government always there when you don't need em and never there when you do.