The Durham man spent a night in jail last summer for cussing a blue streak outside a pizzeria.

Wednesday was supposed to be his day in court.

But curses! Judge James T. Hill dismissed the case before the 72-year-old retiree got to say his piece about the 44-year-old Durham city code he was cited for violating.

Laskody, citation issued by a Durham Alcohol Board Control office, "did use indecent, profane and vulgar language," loud enough to be heard by the public.

On July 21, Laskody was outside Cinelli's Pizzeria and Restaurant near Broad and Main streets. Disgruntled by comments made to him inside the restaurant, and dissatisfied by a lack of interest from management, Laskody had hoisted a sign to picket the place.

The protest stemmed from an earlier incident when the quirky retiree sat down, uninvited, with a woman.

"He's a nasty old man," Gaitano Cinelli, the restaurant owner, said Wednesday. "He was making sexually explicit remarks to my waitresses and to the patrons."

An employee tried to shoo Laskody away while he sipped water and waited for his meal. The conversation turned ugly, he said, when the Cinelli's worker told Laskody he was not at the pizza joint for unsolicited conversation.

"Rudeness I could deal with, " Laskody recounted on Wednesday. "When the guy said you're here to eat, not have conversation, that crossed the line."

Laskody tried to take his case to the restaurant management. Dissatisfied by their response, he took his complaint to the streets.

Law enforcement had no authority to clear him from a public street or sidewalk.

But Laskody said one officer told him he could get him for cursing in public, so just to show that he was not intimidated, he let a few words fly.

"I didn't even use the F-word," Laskody said Wednesday.

Then he left. Peacefully, he said.

A Durham ABC officer issued a summons, based on a city code adopted in 1964 that makes it a misdemeanor to use "indecent, profane or vulgar language on any street or other public place in the city."

Scott Holmes, a lawyer and friend of Laskody's, had his argument ready for the judge.

With legal research borrowed from the ACLU of North Carolina, Holmes drafted a motion to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the code is too broad and violates free-speech rights.

But Hill dismissed the case before Holmes got to make his points. A key witness, the ALE officer who cited Laskody, was running late, and the judge refused to delay the hearing any further.

Katie Parker, legal director of the ACLU of North Carolina, was not surprised to hear about Durham's city code.

"You'll be shocked," she said, "but there's a state statute."

In North Carolina, according to a law the ACLU is ready to challenge, it is illegal to use profanity on a public street in the presence of two or three people.

"So technically," Parker said, "if you're in a car with two or three friends and you cuss, that's a misdemeanor."

Holmes is weighing further legal action with Laskody.

They might challenge Durham's city code, which he thinks was adopted in the 1960s so law enforcement officers could break up civil rights protests.

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