News in the City of the Rivers:
(Sub-titled: We take our law mighty serious, around here Buddy)
Ticket for loud radio disquiets business, Frank Gray
They’ve been selling stereo equipment at Classic Stereo at State Boulevard and Clinton Street for 40 years now. The biggest part of their business involves wiring new homes for home theaters with surround sound. But car stereos are still a good part of their trade.
They’ll sell you a compact disc player and install it for $110 if you’re looking to go cheap. But once in a while someone will want a monster system put in his car and be willing to spend the money to get it.
As happened a couple of Saturdays ago. A couple in their 20s who had just gotten a tax refund wanted a first-class system put in their sport utility vehicle, so the people at Classic replaced every speaker in the car and installed new speakers, including some subwoofers, amps and sophisticated controls. The whole setup cost around $1,900.
When somebody buys something as simple as a low-priced CD player, you don’t have to teach them how to use it. But a system with lots of controls takes a little instruction.
So the manager at Classic, Kevin Hauff, pulled the car out of the garage and to the front of the business, and sitting in the store parking lot started to show them how to make it work. He had the system turned up some, he said, loud enough that it could be heard outside the car, but not so loud that he couldn’t talk to the couple and tell them how to operate it, he says.
The woman who was buying the system, Regina Gowen of North Manchester, said she turned the volume up when she first turned the car on, and it was incredibly loud, so she turned it down right away. It’s quite a system, she says, with a subwoofer that really hits hard, but it wasn’t so loud that she couldn’t hear Hauff talking to her.
As Hauff was sitting in the car, he looked up, and standing right next to him was a police officer. The officer asked for an ID. What? Hauff said he asked. Can I see an ID? He said the officer asked.
The officer collected IDs from everyone in the car and walked back to his patrol car while another officer, whose name he didn’t get, remained standing. Before long the other officer came back with a ticket for the couple, charging them with violating the city’s noise ordinance. Hauff said he asked what was going on. One of the officers, Hauff said, told him they had honked at him, but that he had ignored them.
Gowen said she had heard a horn honk but hadn’t paid any attention to it. Hauff said he saw the police car sitting at the light next to the business, probably two car lengths from where his customer’s car was parked but didn’t think anything of it. It’s a busy intersection and police cars pass by all the time.
He didn’t notice any honking, though, he said. That’s understandable. Thousands and thousands of cars pass through the Clinton-State intersection every day, including lots of heavy trucks that make a racket. After awhile you tune the noise out.
The ticket for his customers doesn’t make a lot of sense to Hauff. They’ve been selling stereos on that corner for 40 years. Last summer they had a show featuring the big bass woofers that some people install in their cars – the ones that make the trunk lid rattle like the lid on an open soup can.
Three or four years ago, he said, the store had a three-day show, with people from all over the country showing off their gear. People with fancy sound systems could show up, crank up the volume and have their systems’ output measured. None of his neighbors complained then, he said. In fact, he says, none of Classic’s neighbors has ever complained about noise from the shop.
Then, two of his customers get a ticket as they are being shown how to operate the controls on their new system.
Hauff said he pretty much kept his mouth shut during the exchange, except, he says, when he asked for his license back and said he had a business to run and was threatened with arrest. He acknowledges that the woman at one point said something to the effect that, “I didn’t turn the bleeping sound down ’cause I couldn’t find the bleeping controls.”
Hauff said he told the police it was private property, and one officer responded that that’s like saying the police couldn’t come on the property and arrest someone for smoking crack. But they’re not selling crack, Hauff said. They’re selling stereos. Some might be so loud they’re illegal, he joked, but it’s a legitimate business.
Gowen says she’s going to fight the ticket.
Michael Joyner, public information officer for the Fort Wayne Police Department, said he couldn’t fault the officers involved. The police didn’t make the law; the public did, he said. And the ordinance is clear. If you can hear something 30 feet from its source, it’s a violation because it interrupts the public’s “repose,” as the ordinance states, and the officer has the discretion of citing you or issuing a warning.
The noise ordinance provides exceptions. For example, companies are allowed to make noises that are customary and incidental to their normal conduction of business. That raises a curious question. Was Hauff doing business? Was he disturbing the repose of neighbors?
That’s what irks Gowen. She knows her system is designed to be loud and that she might get a ticket sometime. For the sake of the business, though, she says she thinks the ticket was wrong. Classic was just trying to run its business, she says, and show a customer how its product works. For her part, Joyner said, Gowen will have her day in court. She can explain that she was just learning how the system worked.
You can’t help but wonder, though. At an intersection where the roar of trucks often drown out the sound of your car radio, whose repose was being disturbed?
Ok, this place is right downtown, along side a truck-route. Is it just a case of WTF? Or, by God, are those noisy punks go to pay? You decide.
JQP
(having bagels and shrimp, coffee blk)
Ticket for loud radio disquiets business, Frank Gray
They’ve been selling stereo equipment at Classic Stereo at State Boulevard and Clinton Street for 40 years now. The biggest part of their business involves wiring new homes for home theaters with surround sound. But car stereos are still a good part of their trade.
They’ll sell you a compact disc player and install it for $110 if you’re looking to go cheap. But once in a while someone will want a monster system put in his car and be willing to spend the money to get it.
As happened a couple of Saturdays ago. A couple in their 20s who had just gotten a tax refund wanted a first-class system put in their sport utility vehicle, so the people at Classic replaced every speaker in the car and installed new speakers, including some subwoofers, amps and sophisticated controls. The whole setup cost around $1,900.
When somebody buys something as simple as a low-priced CD player, you don’t have to teach them how to use it. But a system with lots of controls takes a little instruction.
So the manager at Classic, Kevin Hauff, pulled the car out of the garage and to the front of the business, and sitting in the store parking lot started to show them how to make it work. He had the system turned up some, he said, loud enough that it could be heard outside the car, but not so loud that he couldn’t talk to the couple and tell them how to operate it, he says.
The woman who was buying the system, Regina Gowen of North Manchester, said she turned the volume up when she first turned the car on, and it was incredibly loud, so she turned it down right away. It’s quite a system, she says, with a subwoofer that really hits hard, but it wasn’t so loud that she couldn’t hear Hauff talking to her.
As Hauff was sitting in the car, he looked up, and standing right next to him was a police officer. The officer asked for an ID. What? Hauff said he asked. Can I see an ID? He said the officer asked.
The officer collected IDs from everyone in the car and walked back to his patrol car while another officer, whose name he didn’t get, remained standing. Before long the other officer came back with a ticket for the couple, charging them with violating the city’s noise ordinance. Hauff said he asked what was going on. One of the officers, Hauff said, told him they had honked at him, but that he had ignored them.
Gowen said she had heard a horn honk but hadn’t paid any attention to it. Hauff said he saw the police car sitting at the light next to the business, probably two car lengths from where his customer’s car was parked but didn’t think anything of it. It’s a busy intersection and police cars pass by all the time.
He didn’t notice any honking, though, he said. That’s understandable. Thousands and thousands of cars pass through the Clinton-State intersection every day, including lots of heavy trucks that make a racket. After awhile you tune the noise out.
The ticket for his customers doesn’t make a lot of sense to Hauff. They’ve been selling stereos on that corner for 40 years. Last summer they had a show featuring the big bass woofers that some people install in their cars – the ones that make the trunk lid rattle like the lid on an open soup can.
Three or four years ago, he said, the store had a three-day show, with people from all over the country showing off their gear. People with fancy sound systems could show up, crank up the volume and have their systems’ output measured. None of his neighbors complained then, he said. In fact, he says, none of Classic’s neighbors has ever complained about noise from the shop.
Then, two of his customers get a ticket as they are being shown how to operate the controls on their new system.
Hauff said he pretty much kept his mouth shut during the exchange, except, he says, when he asked for his license back and said he had a business to run and was threatened with arrest. He acknowledges that the woman at one point said something to the effect that, “I didn’t turn the bleeping sound down ’cause I couldn’t find the bleeping controls.”
Hauff said he told the police it was private property, and one officer responded that that’s like saying the police couldn’t come on the property and arrest someone for smoking crack. But they’re not selling crack, Hauff said. They’re selling stereos. Some might be so loud they’re illegal, he joked, but it’s a legitimate business.
Gowen says she’s going to fight the ticket.
Michael Joyner, public information officer for the Fort Wayne Police Department, said he couldn’t fault the officers involved. The police didn’t make the law; the public did, he said. And the ordinance is clear. If you can hear something 30 feet from its source, it’s a violation because it interrupts the public’s “repose,” as the ordinance states, and the officer has the discretion of citing you or issuing a warning.
The noise ordinance provides exceptions. For example, companies are allowed to make noises that are customary and incidental to their normal conduction of business. That raises a curious question. Was Hauff doing business? Was he disturbing the repose of neighbors?
That’s what irks Gowen. She knows her system is designed to be loud and that she might get a ticket sometime. For the sake of the business, though, she says she thinks the ticket was wrong. Classic was just trying to run its business, she says, and show a customer how its product works. For her part, Joyner said, Gowen will have her day in court. She can explain that she was just learning how the system worked.
You can’t help but wonder, though. At an intersection where the roar of trucks often drown out the sound of your car radio, whose repose was being disturbed?
Ok, this place is right downtown, along side a truck-route. Is it just a case of WTF? Or, by God, are those noisy punks go to pay? You decide.
JQP
(having bagels and shrimp, coffee blk)
posted by John Q. Public esq. at 2:10 AM
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