GA- Area challenge to sex offender law dropped

Best guess is, lawsuits are costly and here you have one person trying to fight his issues. Maybe The Southern Center for Human Rights will take up the issue, there is no doubt that lawmakers know that registrants cannot afford these types of actions, and they bet on that!

6-6-2008 Georgia:

Store owner pulls lawsuit

The Jefferson convenience store owner who sued to exempt himself from the Georgia law restricting where sex offenders live and work has dropped his case.

Narinder Chahal, who lives in Lawrenceville, filed suit against the Jackson County Sheriff's Office and the state Department of Corrections on May 20 in hopes of overturning the part of Georgia's Sex Offender Registry statute that bans sex offenders from working within 1,000 feet of a church. Chahal withdrew the suit last Friday, according to court documents filed in Fulton County Superior Court.

A man who answered the phone at Chahal's residence in Lawrenceville said the family had no comment about the reasons Chahal decided to drop the suit.

Chahal, who purchased the Chicken King convenience store and deli in April, has been prevented from working at the Lee Street shop because it is located across the street from Jefferson's First Christian Church.

In his lawsuit, Chahal said that the restriction regarding churches should not apply to him because Chicken King is closed Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings, when the church typically is most used. Preventing him from running the shop violated his constitutional right to own property because he was unable to make the shop profitable without working there himself, Chahal claimed.

Chahal's attorney David Wolfe, who teaches litigation at Georgia State University School of Law, did not return several telephone calls Thursday.

Gov. Sonny Perdue signed a revamped version of Georgia's sex offender statute May 13 to fix parts of the law that the state Supreme Court had deemed unconstitutional.

The new bill grandfathers in offenders who lived or worked within 1,000 feet of a school, church, day-care center or other places children gather prior to July 1, 2006. ..News Source.. by Merritt Melancon