What is noise? How loud is loud? And when is early?
These and other existential questions vexed Lansdale Borough Council Wednesday as they considered, and ultimately unanimously approved, the addition of a noise ordinance to
the borough’s book of codes.
Chapter 260, titled "Noise,” addresses such public disturbances as radios, TVs and amplifiers; musical instruments; yelling, shouting and hooting; trucks and trash pickup; animals and birds; and construction projects. It specifies allowable hours and duration, and exempts borough-sanctioned events such as parades.
Sleep-deprived residents may be disappointed to learn it does not specifically address fireworks – although they’ve already merited a chapter all their own (Chapter 203).
And it doesn’t specify one key metric – loudness, as measured in decibels – which spurred some fretting over how the ordinance would be enforced.
"We didn’t actually define what noise is,” said councilman Leon Angelichio. "In a situation where you have a neighborly dispute between two parties – and I use 'neighborly' loosely – is there an arbitrary determination of what’s too loud?”
In motor vehicle codes, Angelichio said, "there’s a very specific decibel level when an exhaust system is too loud. So if you have a situation like tonight, a beautiful and quiet night, and I can hear everyone walking by my house and talking in a normal tone of voice, are we delineating exactly what too loud is?”
"Officers don’t have a way of measuring decibels in the field,” Mayor Garry Herbert noted. "So even if we were to put some kind of decibel limit on the noise that can be made, it would be unenforceable because we don’t have the equipment to measure that.”
Angelichio allowed that a decibel reading is "kind of a weird number. I’d love to put a decibel level on it, but I don’t think we can. How do you measure? At what distance from the source of the noise? At what angle?”
"And you have to factor in what the base level is in the first place,” said councilwoman Meg Currie Teoh. "In the country it’s one thing, but if you’re here on my street there’s a difference.”
"My concern is enforcement,” Angelichio said. "I don’t want to see somebody arguing with a police officer or (code enforcement), saying, ‘We weren’t too loud,’ and then this other person says they were.”
Teoh, who chairs the borough's Public Safety Committee, said that’s why the wording "reasonable person of normal sensitivities” is used in the ordinance – "to give some flexibility, because I think, generally speaking, the first line of defense is to try to talk everybody down, before you issue tickets. I think there was intended to be some flexibility.”
"I do think it’s always going to come down to enforcement, and it’s going to be a judgment call by the officers,” agreed borough solicitor Patrick Hitchens. "But keep in mind that the officer, when they issue the citation, still has to be able to defend that citation in front of a magisterial district judge in the event someone pleads not guilty.”
Hitchens told borough council that the discussion "highlighted the difficulty in trying to nail down the best model. I’ve certainly pulled from other places, what they’ve done, while wanting to give some flexibility. I think that’s why you’ll repeatedly see time frames involved. The big concern is that certain things should not be going on during certain times.”
So, under the ordinance:
- Don’t crank up band practice before 7 a.m. or after 10 p.m. weekdays, or after 11 p.m. Fridays or Saturdays.
- Don’t yell or shout on the streets between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
- Don’t expect your trash to be picked up before 6 a.m. or after 7 p.m.
- Don’t let your dog bark incessantly for a half-hour or more, any time of the day or night.
- Don’t plan on excavating or jackhammering for your home addition before 7 a.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. Sundays and holidays. (Why are you working Sunday anyway?)
And exactly how loud is too loud? Lansdale’s enforcement officers may not be able to define it precisely, but presumably they’ll know it when they hear it.
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