Across US, locals rebel against noise

RALEIGH, N.C. - In rural California, neighbors want the mules to stop braying. In New York City, the ice cream man has to turn off the jingle on his truck, at least while he's handing out fudgesicles. Here in Raleigh, N.C., it's essentially one shout and you're out as the city council increases noise fines aimed in part at rowdy renters.

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Shhh. Be very quiet. The noise patrol is coming to a siren, scream, or boisterous CD near you. Julius Caesar is believed to have been the first to enact a noise ordinance, banning creaky chariots from barreling around Rome at all hours of the night.

Now a grass-roots movement is gaining momentum from California's Gold Country to the honking streets of New York to turn down the decibel level on all things annoying - and even on some that aren't.

While most municipalities in America now have some kind of noise code on the books, local governments are taking new steps to bolster and tighten laws, pushing back - quietly, of course - against a cacophonous nation that loves its Harleys, leaf blowers, and "boom cars."

In some ways, it's just a fight against the inevitable march of civilization. "You used to reliably move to the suburbs and find peace and quiet," says Les Blomberg of the Noise Pollution Clearinghouse in Montpelier, Vt. But now "we've made our suburbs noisy. We can't all buy 1,000 acres and hide in the middle of it."

Advocates of quietude say that among the most visible culprits are the bass amplifiers that now use the chassis of the car as a resonator, which in turn rattles walls and windows. The amps are even marketed with a sort of rebelliousness in mind, with one subwoofer manufacturer telling customers, "Disturb the peace."

To critics, such affronts are downright unconstitutional and even a cause of urban sprawl, as people move further out on the fringes to get some peace. "[Industries] market noise under the flag of freedom, which is counter to the Jeffersonian idea of freedom within the limits of the equal rights of others around us," says Mark Huber, a noise protester in Richmond, Va.

Since President Reagan cut the federal noise abatement program in 1982, state legislators have been forced to deal with the issue more directly - and often side with big industry. So today it's frequently up to county commissioners and precinct captains to address the thousands of noise complaints phoned in everyday.

And there are a lot of them: 83 percent of the calls to New York City's quality-of-life line in the past year were about "excessive noise," while the vast majority of calls to new 311"municipal emergency" lines in many cities concern sound complaints.

Music that is in ears of the beholder In Austin, supposedly the Southwest's "Music City," police recently arrested three musicians leading a conga line for breaking the city's noise ordinance. Now the city council wants to change the ordinance so police can ticket people who violate the code even if no one has filed a complaint.

In Tamworth, N.H., some townspeople don't want any part of the sonic pleasures that a new European racetrack will offer, so they are pushing a far-reaching new noise ordinance. The racetrack owners, for their part, say they won't even be able to mow the lawn under the proposed code.

Here in Raleigh, N.C., a new fee hike for noise violations has resulted in a "first shout and you're out" policy by some property management firms. The fines imposed by the city council have become stiff enough that the property owners, who have to pay the penalties, won't tolerate any violators in their rental units. In Lorain, Ohio, police are known to smash illegal stereos with sledgehammers.

"Noise pollution has become an epidemic, and sufferers nationwide are not taking it quietly any more," says J.J. Surbeck, a San Diego resident and the webmaster at Noiselaw.org, which advocates for peace and quiet.

The loudest harangue, as usual, may come out of New York, where Mayor Michael Bloomberg is championing a "silent nights" initiative that would lower decibels and hike fines. It's a plan drawing fire from business leaders and poorer neighborhoods. After all, last year New York cops got into a scrape with a Hispanic family that had been listening to music in their yard. The family insisted there had been no complaints, yet the cops arrested everyone, including the grandmother. The case was eventually thrown out of court.

Cases like this raise a more arcane question: Is there an objective standard for noise that everyone can agree on or is it simply that one man's symphony is another man's cacophony? Noise meters, experts say, can do some of the scientific measuring, but standards are still debatable.

Bloomberg critic Charles Barron, a New York City councilman from Brooklyn, says the idea of having Mr. Softee ice cream trucks turn off their jingle targets what he calls a "sound of the city" just to appease an individual's perception of annoyance. "Real loud music - boom cars, car alarms - those are legitimate concerns," says Mr. Barron. "But Mr. Softee? C'mon, that's a bit much."

In Placer County, Calif., on the slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, the growth of the suburbs has set up perhaps the inevitable conflict of man versus mule. Late last year, a newcomer sued a neighbor over the nighttime brays of her companion, "Happy." His demand: $100 per bray. Happy's owner prevailed, after other neighbors testified that the mule's rough melody was a legitimate part of the country soundscape.

To some in Placer County, the question is whether objectively measuring sounds and educating locals with signs will actually lead to a quieter world. Some think the best solution is for neighbors to work it out among themselves. "We don't want to create an ordinance that's used to get rid of Happy the mule," says Gerry Brentnall, a Placer County planning commissioner.

Seniors versus car stereos In St. Petersburg, Fla., some elderly activists did take matters into their own hands. Judy Ellis, upset over the sound from loud car stereos, got neighborhood permission to put up no-noise signs (they show a figure holding his ears). She also sued a local "boomer" who woke the neighborhood up every morning at 6:30, and she is working with local police in a sting operation to take out what she calls the "54th Avenue Boom Car Parade."

"We can feel the car coming before we see it..." says Ms. Ellis. "There's nowhere to run."

Where do you draw the line with noise in your area. I know my little section of hell has been taken over by 5 morons who have stock cars and tune them all day, Harleys speeding down the street, ATVs and snowmobiles and a death metal band. When is enough too much. When did having respect for your neighborhood and its residents become such a hard thing to do. I undersstand we all have our little freedoms, but glass packs, snowmobliles in residential areas and really shitty music by themselves are not too bad. It is the constant combination of all of this that makes me want to move to Iraq for quiet.

The Harleys, boom cars and "performance" exhaust systems on little 4 cylinder Honda's that drive me nuts!

I don't understand why they have the right to make so much noise that I can't even talk on the phone in my home when they go by.

When they do drive by I have really evil thoughts as to what I'd like to do to them...

I do think the law should prohibit it. If they want to make lots of noise they should be restricted on where they can go and do it.

Most communities have noise ordinances. For some reason,(The article tries to pin some bs on Reagan, go figure)your local police refuse to do anything about any of it. You can file a formal complaint against some one, but then you run the risk of coming home one day to find your dog raped and your wife shot.

[Where do you draw the line with noise in your area.]

I draw the line with my own personal responsibility.

I am in a rock band so there is a potential to disturb others. Our solution is to never play in residential areas or any place where people could reasonably be bothered by amplified music being produced in the vicinity.

We rehearse in a basement studio but we completely soundproofed the room so that we could even play at 2am and not a peep of noise can be heard outside the house (our volume level is 106 dB inside).

The noise ordinances in communities are a grab bag of results, some desirable, some not.

I know of a town in northern Wisconsin that has a tradition of live bands that play on Friday and Saturday night during the summer, in the local pubs in the commercial district. This past year, a few newly arrived residents decided that they didn't want any noise at all and stealthily passed a noise ordinance that was extremely strict and was poorly put together in terms of its viability.

The noise limit was 65 dB (about as loud as a small group of people having a discussion) and very soon all of the restaurants and businesses in town were in violation of the ordinance just because there were people present talking and laughing. The situation was one where the police could harass people by selectively ignoring some violators and citing and shutting down others.

It turns out that the councilmen who wrote the ordinance also wrote in an exemption, by name, to a few select businesses in town who were owned by them or their friends even though they were, by far, the worst offenders of noise pollution.

Fortunately, the ordinance was repealed when many angry townspeople showed up at the town meeting to protest.

My current neighborhood isn't too bad. The community I lived in with the Nazi homeowners association was irritating, though. Kids screaming, riding scooters up and down the street, loud cars, and etc.(And this in a neighborhood where you couldn't paint without permission).

The worst was when I lived in an apartment by a pond. I worked graveyards and on the weekends people would race their gas powered boats on the pond starting at 8:30. I'd usually get an hour of sleep before I would get up for most of the day.

My kids are not angels, but they are warned once and then brought in the house if they are loud outside. I just returned a dog to the breeder because among her many faults were barking excessively when outside and howling when inside. I don't know if it's because we lived in military quarters growing up, but I am very sensitive about making too much noise and disturbing the neighbors.

I've got a stereo system in my vehicle, but I only turn it up at nights when I'm on the highway or some country road winding through the woods without any houses nearby. During the day I keep the volume down and mostly listen to talk radio anyway. I have a surround sound system in my condo, but I always turn off the surround amp at 8:30 or 9:00pm so that I don't disturb neighbors. I've got one guy below me that I would like to slaughter though, since he starts pumping out spanish music at full volume at 9am (I don't get up until noon due to work shifts), and yet he pounds on the ceiling with a broom if someone happens to drop something at any time of the day.

Pretty much, people should just be respectful of those around them, but these chronic complainers (i.e. the guy downstairs) should be dismembered and fed through a wheat thresher.

On another thread, this was jokingly suggested as an antidote to "boom cars":

One second of REALLY LOUD NOISE would yield permanent silence from any "thumpermobile"... '-)

I just wish they'd crack down on and fine these rude b*st*rds that rattle the windows on houses with their d**n boom boxes on wheels. Why is it that people with horrible taste in music feel the need to offend everybody with it?

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