The Westbrook City Council amended Monday an ordinance restricting where sex offenders can live, making it one of the strictest to be proposed in the state.

City councilors added a long list of public and private properties to

the zones that had already been proposed as areas where sex offenders could not live, after a public hearing on the ordinance that included testimony from a victim of abuse.

But in the nearby communities of Scarborough, Cape Elizabeth and South Portland, no sex-offender ordinances are on the books, and so far, there doesn’t seem to be much interest in creating any.

“To my knowledge that subject has never been brought up in Scarborough,” said Scarborough Town Council Chairman Jeff Messer.

Police departments in all three municipalities do background checks on sex offenders when they move into town. Detectives look at what crime the sex offender was convicted of, when it occurred and where the offender would be living before deciding to hand out fliers to residents.

“It’s a case-by-case basis,” said Detective Eric Greeleaf, of the Scarborough Police Deaprtment. “There are so many things that have to be taken into consideration.”

In Westbrook, the proposed ordinance before the city council restricted lifetime registered sex offenders whose victims were under the age of 18 from living, loitering or working within 1,500 feet of a licensed child care center and within 2,500 feet of a school.

“When I look at this map, in some respect I find it very

encouraging,” Councilor Drew Gattine said about the city map spotted with circles showing areas off-limits to sex offenders. But he was concerned some of the densely populated areas didn’t have schools or day cares to prevent sex offenders from moving into the neighborhoods.

“Some kids are going to be protected, and some kids aren’t. I have a problem with that,” he said.

The map of the city looked to forbid sex offenders from most major residential areas in the city, but by the end of the night amendments to the proposed ordinance significantly increased those areas.

The council and public embarked on a lengthy discussion looking for advice from City Solicitor William Dale to find how far the ordinance could be pushed before it would be opened up to a

successful legal challenge, a situation Dale said was likely if the

council went so far as to bar sex offenders from living in the city

at all.

Gattine suggested that if the city banned sex offenders from living in the city “in effect” by the number of locations deemed safe zones for children, then he thought the council should “consider just going for it,” and banning sex offenders outright. Councilor Ed Symbol, who brought the first suggestion of an ordinance forward, said after the meeting that it was not his intent to limit sex offenders from living in the city outright.

Councilor Michael Foley was curious whether all publicly owned

property could be identified as zones registered sex offenders would not be allowed to live near, in an effort to restrict more areas where schools and day cares don’t exist. Dale explained that the use of certain areas to restrict sex offenders must be logically connected to the issue at hand – protecting children. Restricting sex offenders from living near a city-owned sewage plant, Dale suggested, would not stand up to scrutiny in court because children are not likely to be at a sewage plant.

Council President Brendan Rielly made several amendments to, in

effect, move toward what many of the councilors had been asking for. Capt. Tom Roth, Westbrook’s acting police chief, submitted to the council a list of areas identified in 2005 as drug-free safe zones, where fines are higher for drug offenses because of the increased population of children. These locations include both public and private playgrounds, ball fields and recreation centers. The council unanimously approved Rielly’s amendment to add those locations to the list of places registered sex offenders can’t live or work near.

Rielly also amended the ordinance to include any commercial property visited by young people, including martial art centers, places where music is taught, movie theaters, dance studios and others.

The council meets later this month for another public hearing on the ordinance.

“Unfortunately, the state does not have the same sort of tenacity to wrestle with the ball as this council does,” Councilor John O’Hara said at the end of the hearing.