1927_private laws_233_38
CHAPTER 232 AN ACT TO CODIFY AND AMEND THE CHARTER OF THE CITY OF WINSTON-SALEM AND AMENDMENTS THERE- TO; TO DEFINE ITS CORPORATE LIMITS AND TO PRO- VIDE FOR ITS GOVERNMENT, AND FOR OTHER PUR- POSES. The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact:
The board of aldermen shall have the power to enact ordinances in such form as they may deem advisable, as follows: For the protection of the waterworks and water supply of the city of Winston-Salem; to grant to any person, firm or corporation a franchise and right to own, control and operate, for a term of years or otherwise, street railways, telephone, telegraph, lighting or heatimg systems, or any other business engaged in public service; to fix tolls of street railways; to contract as to compensation for such franchise, and to control, regulate and tax the same; to prevent vagrancy, and any person not engaged in any lawful cocupation and who spends his time im gambling or loafing about the streets, without visible means of support, shall be considered a vagrant; to regulate and conduct all elections, to prevent interference with the officers thereof, and to preserve order thereat; to prescribe rules and regulations for the government and duties of police officers; to prohibit all trades, occupations or acts which are nuisances; to define and condemn nuisances and provide for the abatement or removal of same; to grant permits for the construction of buildings and other structures, and to prohibit the construction of any building or structure which in the judgment of the board of aldermen may be a nuisance, or of injury to adjacent property, or to the general public; to regulate and control the character of buildings which shall be constructed or permitted to be and remain in any part of the city of Winston-Salem, with the right to declare the same a nuisance or unsafe, and cause their demolition or removal; to provide for the leveling, filling in and drainage of all ponds, sunken lots or other places in which water stands and stagnates, and to recover from the owner or occupant the expenses of doing the same, which expense shall be a lien upon the lots so improved and enforced as liens for taxes; to prevent dogs, hogs, cattle and other livestock from roaming at large in the city, and to regulate or prohibit the keeping of hog pens within the city limits; to define and establish the fire limits and prevent the location of wooden or other buildings within said fire limits and in any part of the city where they may increase the danger of fire; to regulate and prescribe what character of buildings shall be constructed within the said limits, and provide for the conditions under which buildings*may be erected; to establish and appoint a fire commissioner or fire commission, and prescribe the duties and powers thereof; to prohibit the collection or existence in, on or about any storehouse, warehouse, residence or any private premises of inflammable or combustible matter or material; require the owner of such premises to remove or destroy same, and provide rules for the removal or destruction of such inflammable or combustible matter; and for purposes herein set forth to authorize an examination and inspection of all stores, warehouses, residences or any private premises; to establish, regulate and control the markets or market buildings, to fix the location of any market building, prescribe the time and manner and place within the city wherein marketable articles, such as meats, perishable vegetables, fish, game, and, all other kinds of perishable food or diet shall be bought or sold; to appoint keepers of markets and prescribe their duties and fix their compensation ; to regulate the license of itinerant merchants or peddlers, and of those doing a temporary business; to establish, regulate and control cemeteries; to provide for the manner in which bodies may be interred therein or removed therefrom, and for beautifying, ornamenting and keeping the same in condition; to provide suitable grounds for the enlargement, extension or establishment of mew cemeteries, providing separate cemeteries for white and black; to control and regulate the time and manner of burying the dead, the burial of any person within the corporate limits of the said city not within said cemeteries, and provide for the punishment of persons violating the rules and regulations concerning the cemetery; to provide for the establishment, organization, equipment and government of fire companies, fire commissioners and fire-alarm system, and to adopt rules for the conduct, regulations and terms of office thereof; to regulate the erection, placing and maintenance of all telephone, telegraph and other electric wires and to prohibit the same from being strung overhead in a public street, and to 28Private compel the owners and operators of telephone, telegraph or electric wires to put same under ground; to prohibit or control the use of any gasoline engine, the making or repairing of boilers, the establishment or operation of any plant or business which is or may become a nuisance to any part of the community; to prohibit or control the firing of firearms, firecrackers, torpedoes or other explosive materials, and to govern the sale thereof; to control and regulate the speed of all horses or other animals, automobiles, buggies, carriages, wagons or other vehicles on the streets; to regulate the speed of railroad engines and trains or street cars within the corporate limits, or the stopping of engines or cars in the streets or crossings of the city; to specify the manner in which all stove pipes and flues and electric wires shall be put in buildings, and to control and regulate the arrangement and operation thereof; to control and regulate the place and manner in which powder and other explosives and inflammable substances may be kept and sold, and the place and manner in which commercial fertilizers are stored; to provide for the sanitary condition and keeping of all lots, cellars, houses, water closets, privies, lavatories, stables, sites, and other places of like character, to provide for the examination and sanitation thereof, and for that purpose ordinances may be passed authorizing sanitary officers or policemen to enter the premises suspected of being im bad or unsanitary condition and have the same cleaned at the expense of the owner, or abate such places as nuisances and recover of the occupant #NAME? owner the expense thereof; to regulate the due observance of Sunday; to prevent the entrance into the city or the spreading of any contagious or infectious disease therein, and, for that purpose, may stop, detain and examine every person coming from places believed to be infected with such disease; to establish and maintain quarantines against communities and territories where it is suspected prevails any infectious or contagious disease; to establish and regulate hospitals within the city or within three miles thereof, and may cause ary person in the city suspected to be infected with such disease and whose stay in the city may endanger public health, to be removed to the hospital or other place that the mayor may select; to prevent from coming into the city any second-hand clothing, bedding or furniture; to remove from the city or destroy any furniture or other articles which may be suspected to be tainted or infected with contagious or infectious disease or in such condition as may generate and propagate disease; to abate all nuisances which may be injurious to public health; may vaccinate or otherwise subject to medical treatment all persons having smallpox or other contagious or infectious disease; to recover, by proper action against those who may cause the same, all costs and expenses of the moving and treating people having or suspected of having contagious or infectious diseases; shall have power, by force, to remove all persons from the city or to carry them to hospitals or other places selected by the mayor or board of aldermen and detain them therein; to prohibit the carrying on of any disorderly house or house of ill-fame, or gambling house or house where games of chance are being carried on or where liquors are illegally sold; to provide for the inspection and examination thereof; and, for that purpose, may-enter upon said premises and make arrest of any person or persons violating the ordinances of the city in reference thereto; to prohibit the construction of cellars under sidewalks or the making of entrances into sidewalks, and to make rules and fix specifications for the construction of all cellars under sidewalks or entrances into sidewalks; to regulate and control motion picture shows, and all exhibitions or places of public amusement, and all exhibitions or performances given therein; provide a board of censors who shall have power to inspect and view all public places of amusement or exhibtions given therein, and prohibit such as, in their judgment, are immoral or against public interests, and any violation of an order of the board of censors shall be unlawful, and every day an exhibition is permitted after am order of the board of censors prohibitng it shall constitute a separate offense. On behalf of the general welfare of the city of Winston-Salem, and for the good order and government thereof, the board of aldermen may, in addition to the foregoing powers. pass or ordain any resolution or ordinance, and enforce the same by proper punishment or penalty, which it may consider wise or proper, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the State.