For decades, the siren atop the small fire station in this southern Alberta town would wail at 10 p.m. every night, warning local teenagers to scurry home before the municipal curfew set in.

The siren is gone, but the curfew remains under a new community bylaw. No one under the age of 16 can be out unescorted in Taber between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The farming town of 8,100 has faced ridicule for the expanded bylaw it adopted in late February. Along with continuing the curfew, it levies fines of $75 to $250 for those caught swearing, yelling or spitting in public. Police can also disperse groups of three or more.

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While critics warn the bylaw could be unconstitutional, and a flood of mockery has targeted the community online, locals polled along the town's main drag stand with the mayor and police force. They resent the way their town has been portrayed.

Known as Canada's corn capital, Taber sits in the middle of the southern Alberta prairie. Surrounded by grain elevators and wind farms, it is a conservative area and part of a Bible Belt where life moves at a slower pace and locals like things to change gradually, if at all.

"I support the bylaw. I really don't get the reaction. Maybe they could have worded it a little differently," Tracey Saranchuk said.

At an information session last Friday, police explained the new rules to about 35 locals. The bylaw gives police the power to break up assemblies, but protests will be allowed – including a planned one against the bylaw. Police say there is no list of forbidden curse words.

"I was born here and lived here all my life," said Linda Christensen, who applauded the police force. "I don't think anything will change and it shouldn't. It was fine before and it should stay the same."

The bylaw was prepared with the help of police officers who scoured bylaws across the country. Mayor Henk De Vlieger said a lawyer did not review it, and the town has no intention to revisit the rules.

"We are in a town here with common sense and we've been policed by that," Mr. De Vlieger said.

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Taber police say they are angry and embarrassed about the reaction from across Canada.

Inspector Graham Abela said many Canadian municipalities have identical rules – the section on swearing and yelling was copied from another Alberta town. The inspector blames self-interested legal experts and sensational reporting for the backlash.

"I'm very disappointed with the black eye that the community has been improperly given. We had a bunch of good people, trying their best to make good decisions for this community," he said. "Others have laughed and joked, and make fun of this community. It's absolutely inappropriate and unwarranted. That's what I'm mad at."

With the force facing complaints about graffiti and youth hanging out in parks, Insp. Abela said much of the bylaw would allow officers to use tickets where parenting failed. The police say they will use the bylaw to encourage good behaviour rather than laying charges. The town's police chief told The Globe and Mail he guarantees no one will get a ticket for swearing in his town. However, he quickly added that the bylaw gives his officers a wider range of tools than just arrest.

"If someone has a momentary lapse of, 'My mother isn't watching and I'm going to throw a fit,' what's our remedy? Charge them with the criminal code? Really? We are going to fix that with a bylaw," Chief Alf Rudd said.

In the 1984 movie Footloose, local teenagers challenged their town council's no-dancing bylaw. Lawyer Douglas Carle said much the same thing is playing out in Taber.

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He said the bylaw violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"You fill the [Taber] Civic Centre with citizens and a large number of them would favour the new bylaws," Mr. Carle said. "But that doesn't make it right."

In southern Alberta, towns have far-ranging bylaws. Last October, residents of the predominantly Mormon town of Cardston, an hour west of Taber, voted to uphold a prohibition on alcohol that has stood for almost 110 years.

"A lot of folks come by and ask where they can find alcohol. Fort Macleod's the next place, we tell them to keep driving," said Jeremy Bevans, working the counter of a hardware store on Main Street in Cardston.

Fort Macleod is a 40-minute drive to the north through the Blood First Nation Reserve. Mr. Bevans said locals rarely bring up prohibition: "It's always been a Mormon town, always been a dry town."

With a report from Allan Maki