Sandpoint KOs combat fights

SANDPOINT — Bloody knuckles, wrenched joints and bitten ears will be illegal downtown, according to the latest amendments to the city’s comprehensive plan.

The City Council split like a punched lip at a meeting earlier this month on whether unarmed combat should be allowed downtown.

In a turnaround at Wednesday’s special meeting, members unanimously voted for the prohibition without a bob, weave or a take-down as part of a series of amendments to the comprehensive plan.

Justin Schuck, who opposed outlawing sanctioned fights in a commercial zone at the regular June 16 meeting, said this week’s special meeting was not the place to further discuss the amendment.

“We had already voted on it,” Schuck said. “We had our opportunity to speak our piece about it.”

Schuck, along with council member Jamie Davis and Stephen Snedden voted against banning unarmed combat, and council members Carrie Logan, John Reuter and Marsha Ogilvie voted to prohibit fights, such as grappling and punching cage matches.

The mayor broke the tie by supporting the ban.

“We voted on it, the mayor said no, that’s the process,” Schuck said.

Outlawing unarmed combat was added to the commercial zoning laws during the June 16 council meeting when one council member asked that the practice be prohibited in downtown’s commercial zone.

“It’s the activity I’m focused on,” Carrie Logan told fellow council members. “I don’t think it belongs in downtown commercial.”

Some council members, including Stephen Snedden, were concerned that amending the commercial zoning law to prohibit unarmed combat as defined in the state code, would make martial arts schools illegal downtown.

“I voted no,” Snedden said. “The definition of unarmed combat wasn’t clear to me and it was possible that the definition prohibited martial arts.”

According to the code, unarmed combat means fighting without the use of weapons “other than the natural appurtenances of the human body.”

The amendment would not prohibit boxing or sparring.

Schuck did not support the ban because he thought that sanctioned fights, those with judges and a referee, should be allowed.

Schuck agreed with Snedden that the definition of unarmed combat according to state code was not clear.

“There is a gray area,” he said.