|
|
|
Articles
|
| Noise ordinance gains traction at D.C. Council |
VOICE writes, "By NATALIE GONTCHAROVA
Current Staff Write
Spurred by anti-noise activists in Near Northeast, three D.C. Council members have introduced a bill that would limit the volume of non-commercial public speaking in the city.
Council members Kwame Brown, Mary Cheh and Tommy Wells proposed the bill, which would classify non-commercial public speech as a noise disturbance if it fits certain criteria.
To qualify as a disturbance, noise must either exceed 70 decibels (comparable to the sound of a train, or traffic on a busy street) or rise 10 or more decibels above ambient noise when measured at a distance of 50 feet from the source -- whichever is greater. A "reasonable person" must also consider it disruptive.
The "reasonable person" standard, according to the D.C. Municipal Regulations, classifies as a noise disturbance any sound that is "loud and raucous or loud and unseemly and unreasonably disturbs the peace and quiet of a reasonable person of ordinary sensibilities in the vicinity thereof," unless making the noise is necessary to protect somebody's health or safety.
"
|
The bill was spurred by a situation on the hill, where residents were fed up with a radical group that gathered at the corner of 8th and H streets every Saturday morning to shout slogans through an amplifier. The residents have been in talks with Wells since February of last year.
The Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ chapter, which supports the bill, has also been in talks with Wells since last February, about inserting the "10 decibels above ambient noise" portion into the bill, said Wells chief of staff Charles Allen. He noted that an increase in 10 decibels represents a doubling, not just a slight increase, in noise level.
"If you're holding a protest, you want be heard," Allen said, explaining the rationale behind including the higher measure.
On Jan. 29, the council's Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs approved the bill, called the Noise Control Protection Amendment Act of 2007, with only Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham voting against it. The council's Committee of the Whole will consider it Tuesday.
The bill faces vehement opposition from other labor unions, such as the Washington DC Metro Council of the AFL-CIO, whose members believe they should have the right to use amplifiers to get their message across.
"It violates free speech," said Rick Powell, political director of the local AFL-CIO branch. "We don't believe they have the votes to pass this."
"It's going to be a close vote," Ward 3's Cheh said in an interview.
Cheh, who teaches constitutional law at George Washington University, said opponents who say the bill would violate free-speech regulations are "entirely wrong." Regulators can place limits on the time, place and manner of speech as long as the restrictions are reasonable, she said.
"You have to have some accommodation to the peace and quiet of neighbors," Cheh said.
The council was going to take up the bill on Feb. 5, but the AFL-CIO branch objected to a lack of public notice. Allen said the bill was not placed on the council's agenda for that day, likely due to a procedural matter. But he added that his office has engaged the AFL-CIO multiple times, asking union officials if they could suggest additions or changes to the bill's language.
"We were communicating with the AFL-CIO throughout the fall on the bill. ... They obviously knew it was moving forward," Allen said.
Several community associations, including the Woodland-Normanstone Neighborhood Association, support the bill.
In the tony neighborhood of Woodland-Normanstone, located next to Woodley Park, a group called the "Enough Is Enough!" campaign has been protesting since September in front of the house of Debra Lee, chairman and chief executive officer of Black Entertainment Television.
Almost every Saturday, the group, which aims to dissuade "the entertainment industry from portraying negative images of black men and women," stakes out Lee's house in the 2800 block of McGill Terrace, sometimes amassing a crowd of more than 500 people.
Cheh said this well-publicized instance of protesters using a bullhorn and disturbing a residential neighborhood is a good reason to support the bill. She added that she and 2nd District Cmdr. Andy Solberg have met with the protesters, asking them to lower the volume, but she said she is unsure whether they have complied.
Laurence Aurbach, president of the Woodland-Normanstone Neighborhood Association and a resident of Lee's block, said hundreds of protesters used to swarm his block during the fall, though now the number has dwindled to around 10.
"For the last 20 weeks, every Saturday at 1, protesters with bullhorns descend on our neighborhood, and we are subjected to excessive noise," Aurbach said. He said the protests last about an hour.
Aurbach said his neighborhood association sent a proposal to Council Chairman Vincent Gray in late January asking him to consider amending the bill's language to measure decibel levels from the nearest residential property line. It also requested that police receive authority to confiscate bullhorns. Gray has not responded yet, he said.
Co-sponsor Wells says the bill as currently worded would close a loophole in D.C. law. According to a statement on his Web site, the D.C. Council in 2004 amended the definition of a noise disturbance, exempting daytime non-commercial public speech.
"The definition change created a loophole with unintentional effect -- leaving non-commercial speech in the daytime subject to absolutely no noise limitations under District law," according to the statement.
The statement noted that the new bill would go "above and beyond First Amendment protections found in other jurisdictions" because it would measure public speech above 70 decibels as constituting a noise disturbance only if it were also found excessive under the "reasonable person" standard, as defined by D.C. law.
Cheh said in an interview that courts nationwide "have routinely upheld" the "reasonable person" standard.
In February 2007, then-D.C. attorney general Linda Singer wrote council members Wells and Cheh that she had reviewed regulations in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta, New York and Maryland when researching the noise law. She found that, with the exception of Los Angeles, those locations all treat non-commercial speech the same as any other unreasonable noise.
"With this bill, D.C. remains the most progressive and the most permissive jurisdiction in the country, as far as we can tell," said Allen, noting that the legislation is not intended to limit protesters' rights to organize but simply to alleviate residents' noise concerns.
The AFL-CIO's Powell disagreed, distinguishing speech from mere noise. "We have never been opposed to setting limits on noise, but there is a distinct difference between noise and speech," he said.
|
Posted on Feb 20, 2008 15:54pm.
(Return)
|
|
|
|
|
Categories
|
|
|
