A city ordinance requiring registration of bicycles has been on the books since July 1978, but in recent years not active.
By next week, Eunice Police may be back in the business of registering bicycles, according to Police Chief Randy Fontenot.
“We used to do it, but somewhere along the line the police department quit registering bicycles and the enforcement fell by the wayside,” he said.
“Considering all the issues we are having with bicycle traffic these days, we are going to start registering bicycles again,” he said.
A few months ago Fontenot announced that police were stopping bicyclists about issues such as headlights after dark.
“You see that now many bicycles have headlights,” he said.
“If we start enforcing the registration it will kind of mushroom like that,” he said.
Registering bicycles will also help police recover stolen bicycles, he said.
“We have bicycles that we recover that we have no idea who the owners are,” he said.
Fontenot believes bicycle thefts are going unreported.
“We used to get reports every day,” he said.
One reason the bike thefts are not reported are people think it won’t do any good, he said.
“I think the bicycle thefts are happening a lot more than what we are being made aware of and I think they just feel it doesn’t pay to report it because the chances of finding them is slim,” he said.
Fontenot said he has ordered 500 reflective registration stickers. The stickers are difficult to remove once place on the bike, he said.
The 1978 registration fee was $3 with a $1 annual renewal, he said.
Fontenot plans to ask the Board of Aldermen to increase the registration fee to $5 and eliminate the renewal fee.
If a bicycle is sold or ownership transferred, the new owner is required to update the registration within 10 days.
The registration stickers are to be available at the police department, he said.
If the bicycle program works out, Fontenot said the city may consider registration for other items such as power generators and lawn mowers.
