Buffalo Rising Online

it's a far cry from the crotchety old man theory, wholelotta. we have older folks that deserve peace and quiet and little kids that deserve better role models on the street. as far as the safety issue, i agree with mrodgers, i've not heard a siren more than once due to loud sound systems, and this can cause serious injury or even death. maybe if you were to be biking along delaware and didn't hear a siren in time due to loud music, you'd feel the same way. there comes a time in every one's life when they put away childish things.

Noise is a huge quality of life issue. Jibbajabba, you could not be more wrong! Do you have kids? Have you ever had to settle a baby down to sleep after some inconsiderate slob blasts his 'music' through your house as he cruises past in the wee hours?

The police department is horrid about responding to quality of life issues like excessive noise from partying neighbors (despite endless calls regarding one particular house in our neighborhood, for example).

Inconsiderate narcissistic fools who think it's okay to blast their car horns (instead of getting their lazy asses out of the car to ring the doorbell), blast their stereos, shout and cavort to all hours are breaking the social compact and should be fined, big time. Go Franczyk!

The result of non enforcement of noise standards is that those families which can do so end up moving away to 'better' neighborhoods where ghetto behavior is not tolerated. That contributes greatly to neighborhood decline. Fix the small things ('broken window theory') and big problems are often thwarted.

jibbaJabbah:

I'll put my stereo against yours any day of any week (Counterpoint, Nakamichi, Proton, Lynn Sondeck, Soliloquy, Velodyne, high quality interconnects, etc.). It sounds very, very good when cranked (rock, blues, jazz and classical). I've spent more on it than most people do. I bought the preamp more than twenty years ago (when I was young) and that component alone cost $900 then. My speakers are only a couple of years old ($3600/pair), the sub is old (but good). I happen to love good music. I also like to listen pretty loudly sometimes. You can't listen to the stones or zeppelin too quietly. It doesn't work. I understand that.

You are welcom to crank your stereo as loud as you like. Enjoy your music. what you are not allowed to do is to invade everybody else's space when you do it. You like loud music? Great. Set yourself up in a listening environment where you won't be polluting everyone elses air! That's the responsibility of the listener.

Quality of life issues affect a neighborhood's viability. If the neighborhood is annoying to live in, people move out. Make the neighborhoods more pleasing to live in, people move in. Booming stereos annoy people (with good reason). Even if there weren't ancillary benefits to enforcement which Marylin Rodgers mentions above (good opportunity for other enforcement during the same stop), this would still be worth the police action. Reason? Making the city livable should be a priority in order to attract new residents.

Maybe we wouldn't need to demolish so many homes if more neighborhoods in the city were more civil. Maybe more residents would move back in if anitsocial behavior wasn't tolerated.

wmjj: you say Amherst is safe because the rich protect their money. maybe. But I'll bet it's also true that if you drive down the block in Amherst with your stereo booming as loudly as I've heard in my neighborhood, you'll get pulled over and given a ticket for disturbing the peace. And the police will take the opportunity to see if there are any other infractions they can write you up for. Call it harrassment if you like; I call the obnoxious noise pollution harrassment.

If you've never heard of the 'broken window' theory, it's this: if someone breaks a window, fix it immediately. If you don't, more vandelism will occur and it will get worse and worse. But if you fix the window, vandalism will move to some other easier target.

In NYC (under Giulliani, I believe) the police were directed to stop and ticket every scofflaw, regardless of how petty it seemed. The transit police arrested some guy for jumping the subway stall (which he did so he wouldn't have to pay the subway fare).

Now you might say that this was a ridiculous waste of police resources. Here were two highly paid officers hualing to the police station some dude who didn't pay his $1.25 to ride the subway. You might ask how futile and expensive such a policing operation would be. But the theory is that those who break big laws also break little laws. In this case, this guy they arrested for jumping the subway ticket machine was discovered to be a murderer. His fingerprints matched those of a killer (dry cleaner and his wife in a robbery that had been unsolved for several years). He had never before been arrested for anything. It was only with his fingerprints (everybody gets fingerprinted when arrested) that the murder was finally solved. Enforce the small stuff. It helps keep the big stuff at bay.

Shut the damn things up!

Honolulul has a very nice ordinance for about twenty years now - works great.

Did you know that people with a form of epilepsy can be sent into convulsions because of the assholes who play the loud crap?

My partner suffers from it - and it's not a "frivilous" thing...

It's about RESPECT as many others have stated.

Proves that jibbyjabby is a rude SELFISH asshole is all...

You go off topic a lot. What the hell do terrorists have to do with any of this?

JibbaJabbah:

so if I understand your argument, it is this: Pathetic testosterone induced preening by insecure show offs is demonstrably more acceptable among particular ethnic groups, therefore: all other segments of society should endure noise pollution (which they find extremely rude and obnoxious) just in order to be culturally sensitive.

Or is your argument that we white bread old fogies don't really care about the sound; it's really the 'Ricans and blacks we wish to harrass, and so we pick up on some particular behaviors that target these disliked groups and we if we only had decency then we would back off our thinly veiled racistly motivated Nazi sentiments. Is that your argument?

Either way, your are so wrong.

In the first place, let me assure you, It is the sound that gets my goat. You don't find it obnoxious. That's great. Like I said earlier, you've never had to calm down a sleeping baby after some idiot blasts past your house. You don't have to convince a spouse to stay in a noisy neighborhood. You don't have the responsibilities yet of family life. You are young and so these things don't bother you. Fine.

What right does that give you to impose your decibals on everyone else? Everyone else who is not young? Everyone else who does not like it?

You vainly act as though youth=goodness and truth. Age=worthlessness. Well, screw you. Old people, and sick people and very young people all still have to exist in the same time and space as you and your booming friends. And we are not imposing our quiet upon you: you can listen at whatever volumes you desire in ways which do not disturb everyone else.

Sound space and air are communal space. That means we have to respect everyone's air space & everyone's sound space. Like I said earlier, you like loud toons (as do I), play them loud. Just keep it internal so you don't pollute other's space.

Just because some behavior is tolerated, even venerated in certain cultures or subcultures does not mean that it ought to be tolerated by society at large?

Should Michael Vick be allowed to stage dog fights because among his ethnic group cruel behavior might be more tolerated? What about the dogs?

Many Arabic cultures were more accepting of slavery than even white north americans. Many more African slaves were shipped to the middle east than were shipped to north america (the fact that most died speaks to the cruelty they endured). Even today, one finds in the news stories of slavery, usually involving captors and slaves both of whom immigrated from poor third world nations in Africa or Asia.

should we allow this behavior just to be culturally sensitive?

You bring up smoking. Good topic. It's not allowed anymore indoors in public spaces, is it? It's not even allowed in outdoor arenas. Know why? Because it affects everyone else's air, too. Not just the smoker's.

You say 'This is America. I can do whatever I want!'. Can you pollute everyone else's water? You used to be able to do that in America. Should we allow that today? Can you pollute everyone's air just because you want to? So why should you be able to pollute with sound?

Because it's not as serious as slavery? No it's not. It's not even as important as animal cruelty. But that doesn't mean it is insignificant. You find it trivial. A survey of preceding comments will reveal that others find it more than minor.

I have spoken with many residents of poor neighborhoods. I own buildings in poor neighborhoods. Noise is one of the very most often cited reasons for people abandoning poor neighborhoods. People (African Americans and Hispanics who are of the same ethnic groups as the perpetrators--I owned several apartment buildings a few years ago) who work jobs tell me they cannot stay in a neighborhood because they have to get up in the morning and cannot sleep at night with all the partying and inconsiderate noise at night. In the day time, the neighborhood is quiet (cause all the jobless aren't up and about and most of the employed are at work). At night, it's a cacophany. If they call the cops, the cops (if they come) tell the perpetrators that the complaint came from that particular neighbor, and then there is retaliation.

And as for the behavior, it is really white trash behavior anyway, not African. I might suggest an exceptional book dealing with the topic of racism by an African American scholar. Look up "Black Rednecks and White Liberals". Great read. This is not Afrocentric behavior. It is southern white behavior adopted by slaves. Like I said, it's an eye opening, and extremely well documented read.

wljj:

First: Michael Vick and slavery: not off topic; I'm simply applying the logic you offer in your argument about cultural norms to other circumstances. Yes, one argument you offer is that it is a waste of time for the police. Go back to broken windows and Giuliani (again, not at all off topic) above for that rebuttal. But you offer another argument only one post ago that says it is becasue the perpetrators are Hispanic or African American that we are all hot about this issue. The logic behind my scenarios (slavery, dogfighting) follow your logic, that's all. Cultural sensitivity is misplaced in this context.

Air and water pollution are analagous to noise pollution. You don't address those arguments.

Second: yes, all babies cry. That doesn't give you any right to come up to my baby and make it cry just because you want to, simply because babies cry anyway at other times when hungry or sad. It doesn't give you any right to come blasting into my neighborhood at all hours of the night and wake sleeping children and tired spouses.

You say all you know about parenthood is that it is sleep deprived. So that gives you a right to act inconsiderately and deprive MORE of my sleep? Explain that.

I'm not infringing upon anyone's right to listen to their music. It is the responsibility of the listener to not disturb others. Period. You can't take a boom box on the bus for the same reason, but you can listen to headphones there.

When you say 'if it's too loud, you're too old', yes I take that as dismissing concerns of elders. It's not just a saying. You said it for a particular reason. What reason?

I also think your arguments dismiss concerns of those in the poorest neighborhoods, from which flight is most pronounced. Perhaps your neighborhood is not so affected and so you dismiss the quality of life concern. The poorest neighborhoods are the most affected (it is no coincidence that the president of the council, who lives next to a gas station in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Buffalo, is the most staunch advocate of the enforcement). People fly out of the poorest neighborhoods for just such quality of life issues (and I maintain, from my experience, that this is a bigger issue than vacant houses or schools in those same neighborhoods. Rude noise is at the very top of the list of neighborhood livability issues in the poorest neighborhoods. And as I said, there are plenty of African Americans and Hispanics, in those neighborhoods, who leave Because of the noise).

As far as bars are concerned, no we don't go out much anymore. But any establishments that weren't designated as smoking bars prior to the ban are indeed allowing the law to be broken if they permit smoking inside. And people cannot smoke outdoors in any stadium in NY (or California or a dozen other states). Are you old enough to remember going to restaurants where smoking was pervasive? Then after a while it became fashionable to inquire: 'smoking or non smoking section?'. Now you won't be asked that anymore and the reason is because it is now illegal to smoke in restaurants. As it should be. It's Everybody's air. You want to foul it with smoke, it has to be in a context where you won't cause injury and annoyance to others.

You never did defend you terrorist reference, whatever you meant by that. Nor did you explain your reference to suing Sony because they make equipment that you can abuse others with via loud sound. That's why I said you go off topic a lot. The issue is acting considerately to others who are affected by your behavior.

I don't get the sense that you blast your stereo inconsiderately, just that you take up for those who do. Prehaps you do this in part because you feel it's part and parcel of another culture and therefore ought to be tolerated. Overly loud booming stereo music is antisocial behavior because it does not take into consideration others who cannot escape the noise.

The reverse is not true, because no one stops anyone from listening to music. Roll up the windows and turn down the volume. We just want to stop the circumstances where your music is imposed upon everyone else, willing listener or not.

ps: the other reason I inferred you are dismissive of elders are your several references in early comments about crotchety old men, yelling at kids for just walking by, for example. I have never experienced this myself (though I did get yelled at as a kid when I cut across someone's lawn instead of walking on the sidewalk).

Alright, so it's been a few days and I've cooled off and I admit I went a little off the deep end. And in the neighborhood in which I now live, it's a problem some times. Not too often. But there is a house about ten doors away which is reportedly being used for drug distribution and loud cars come and go from that house constantly at night. And another house which has a loud party throwing young owner across the street from us.

But other neighborhoods (Broadway/Fillmore, where I still own some property, Main/Ferry where I did own a 23 unit apartment building and where I still have real estate at which i will be developing apartments) are much more inundated with noise. There, neighbors do tell me they are leaving because of the noise (in my current neighborhood, some good neighbors are concerned about the direction of the neighborhood and the noise, and make 'noise' that they are strongly considering moving).

Just because something isn't a big problem in your neighborhood doesn't mean it isn't a real problem elsewhere. Live next to a gas station like Dave Franczyk. If noise is not a big deal in your neck of the woods, then the cops won't be doing much enforcement there. Live in a noisy neighborhood, however, and your attititude would likely change. don't dismiss this initiative just because your neighborhood is relatively unaffected by the problem. Other neighborhoods are less imune.