The roots of the 24-hour noise ordinance
Back in January, when the Grand Forks City Council passed a law that banned loud partying 24 hours a day, Police Capt. Kerwin Kjelstrom supported the move saying that it would give his officers more flexibility.
The City Beat, trying to be a good government watchdog, instinctively recoils when somebody suggests passing a loose law to make it easier for the authorities. Being a bad watchdog, I never did follow-up and ask Kjelstrom what the heck he meant.
Well, Police Chief John Packett explained pretty well what he meant at a meeting between city and student leaders today.
As I quoted him in my story, Packett said: "Three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year, it's not an issue. It becomes an issue during Springfest."
In other words, there is almost never a need to break up an afternoon party, except on that one day.
UND student body VP Nathaniel Hilliard said that revelation won't sit well with students. "People will call it a once-a-year law."
I don't think Packett tried to refute that. He only said that his officers have not been overzealous so city leaders should give the law a chance.
Packett had brought a report to the meeting comparing noise complaint calls for the first six months of this year and 2005. The 2005 data is the control data because the 24-hour noise ordinance passed in January 2006.
Two ways to look at the data:
First, the pattern of complaint calls placed, based on hours, is virtually the same in the two periods. The same goes for the calls that led to arrests. Almost all the calls were between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., which is the time period that the old noise ordinance banned loud partying. This supports the argument that the 24-hour noise ordinance isn't necessary.
The patterns for the entire city compared to the UND neighborhood was almost the same, leading Council President Hal Gershman to say that students were no worse behaved than everyone else. (The data doesn't specify students, just areas.)
What's pretty funny to me is that the complaints for the UND neighborhood ended after 4 a.m., but continued until 6 a.m. for the rest of the city. What's also funny is that, unique to the UND neighborhood, a number of complaints came in the middle of the day after the noise ordinance passed. Five in the 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. period and one in the 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. period. None of those led to arrests. That says the cops haven't been overzealous, as the chief said. But what does it say about the neighbors?
On the other hand, the number of complaints that led to arrests have shrunk citywide but grown in the UND neighborhood. Citywide, they dropped from 60 to 48. In the UND neighborhood, they rose from nine to 14. Most of the arrests came late at night.
The City Beat, trying to be a good government watchdog, instinctively recoils when somebody suggests passing a loose law to make it easier for the authorities. Being a bad watchdog, I never did follow-up and ask Kjelstrom what the heck he meant.
Well, Police Chief John Packett explained pretty well what he meant at a meeting between city and student leaders today.
As I quoted him in my story, Packett said: "Three-hundred-sixty-four days of the year, it's not an issue. It becomes an issue during Springfest."
In other words, there is almost never a need to break up an afternoon party, except on that one day.
UND student body VP Nathaniel Hilliard said that revelation won't sit well with students. "People will call it a once-a-year law."
I don't think Packett tried to refute that. He only said that his officers have not been overzealous so city leaders should give the law a chance.
Packett had brought a report to the meeting comparing noise complaint calls for the first six months of this year and 2005. The 2005 data is the control data because the 24-hour noise ordinance passed in January 2006.
Two ways to look at the data:
First, the pattern of complaint calls placed, based on hours, is virtually the same in the two periods. The same goes for the calls that led to arrests. Almost all the calls were between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., which is the time period that the old noise ordinance banned loud partying. This supports the argument that the 24-hour noise ordinance isn't necessary.
The patterns for the entire city compared to the UND neighborhood was almost the same, leading Council President Hal Gershman to say that students were no worse behaved than everyone else. (The data doesn't specify students, just areas.)
What's pretty funny to me is that the complaints for the UND neighborhood ended after 4 a.m., but continued until 6 a.m. for the rest of the city. What's also funny is that, unique to the UND neighborhood, a number of complaints came in the middle of the day after the noise ordinance passed. Five in the 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. period and one in the 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. period. None of those led to arrests. That says the cops haven't been overzealous, as the chief said. But what does it say about the neighbors?
On the other hand, the number of complaints that led to arrests have shrunk citywide but grown in the UND neighborhood. Citywide, they dropped from 60 to 48. In the UND neighborhood, they rose from nine to 14. Most of the arrests came late at night.
posted by Tu-Uyen at 10:38 PM
6 Comments:
The roots in fact are the real estate developers who insist on buying up family dwellings in order to pact as many students as possible into a dwelling and charge each one $400/mth. Noise wouldn't be a problem if the concentration of students hadn't increased so much over the years thanks to the developers who have no respect for the family component of the University neighborhood. Students have always been welcome as resident/renters in houses occcupied by families but not as residents who have displaced families with the help of the develpoers.
One obvious problem in the interpretation of the noice complaint data is that it seems to assume that calls from outside the UND area did not involve students. Students live all over the city now, and could well have been the culprits.
Students live all over the city now, and could well have been the culprits.
I did note that.
Anonymous: Get real. A large number of homeowners who came to the council said this noise problem has been going on for a long time.
I keep saying the arguments against the developers are reasonable, but that's not what most homeowners complained about.
Might I add that some homeowners were fairly new to the neighborhood, coming, it seemed to me, at around the same time the developers did, motivated by the same low interest rates.
A 24-hour noise ordinance is ridiculous. It is simply a tool which enables police to pick and choose which parties they will shut down. There has to be some compromise between the rights of individuals to use their property as they see fit and the rights of the community to peacefully enjoy their own property. That's where noise ordinances with time limitations come in - to protect the rights of both residents to enjoy their property. Extending the time limit to make the ordinance enforceable 24-hours a day effectively limits the rights of one homeowner to benefit the other, disrupting the compromise.
But, we're simply supposed to hand our rights over to the government and hope that the police don't abuse them because they said they wouldn't? I live in the University neighborhood, I am not a student, and I HATE noisy neighbors. But, I hate more blindly entrusting my rights to the police through an ordinance such as this; I really hope that a neighbor who doesn't like me doesn't decide to call the cops the next time my kids have friends over to play in the sprinkler before dinner time.
"A 24-hour noise ordinance is ridiculous."
Agreed. And also the making of a Catch-22. The city demands you mow your lawn, yet makes possible a lawful complaint for the noise of your lawnmower at any time of the day.
Tu-uyen said "many homeowners who complained said the noise had been going on for long time" and "many homeowners came to the neighborhood at the same time as the deveolpers because of low interest rates". I didn't say the noise hadn't been going on for a long time. My mother has lived in the same house for 60 yrs. by University Park so I know the neighborhood. Developers have been coming for years. This isn't the 1st time interest rates have been low. The point is that the concentration of student-only houses has reached a level where problem noise is much more frequent. The reference to students NOW living all over the city?,they always have. Could it be that once the drinking age went back to 21 from 18 about 15-20 yrs. ago students found it more fun to live off campus. There were many 18 yr.old EGF bars that made it possible to live in a dorm and still drink legally on the east side. The music scene was also a lot better. I'm not suggesting we return to those days, except for the music, but there is a linkage to the housing issues we see today.
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