So at this point it’s pretty much established that I am pro-music and anti-police-who-take-the-music-away. The noise ordinance that makes it easy for the police to shut down musical performances has been one of my longstanding enemies. We go way back. Recently, though, I’ve had a change of heart. Not only do I now believe that the noise ordinance should be enforced, I don’t think it’s being enforced enough. I want the police to crack down and really start taking this law seriously. The future of our city is at stake.
So at this point it’s pretty much established that I am pro-music and anti-police-who-take-the-music-away. The noise ordinance that makes it easy for the police to shut down musical performances has been one of my longstanding enemies. We go way back. Recently, though, I’ve had a change of heart. Not only do I now believe that the noise ordinance should be enforced, I don’t think it’s being enforced enough. I want the police to crack down and really start taking this law seriously. The future of our city is at stake.
My younger brother moved to Richmond a little less than a year ago. It’s been nice having him around. We manage to spend a lot of time together, as we work together, play soccer together, and recently started playing music together. It’s been a great way to catch up after nearly six years of living apart. Yesterday, while we were playing music with a friend in my brother’s house in Carver, his landlord showed up unannounced. He was there to collect rent checks, and told us that we couldn’t have band practice there. We turned off our amps and put down our guitars, but, disappointed by having our time playing music cut short, my brother asked why we had to stop. His roommates had all expressed that they don’t mind the noise, and his neighbors have all reacted the same way. My brother has played the drums in his house almost every day since he moved there in January, and until yesterday, there had been not a single complaint.
His landlord quickly developed a temper, telling him, “It’s my fucking house, and you’ll do what I say while you’re living in it.” His hostile tone was matched by his physical demeanor, and for a moment I thought he was actually going to assault my brother over a band practice. Then he called the police. In the time that we spent waiting for the police, he told my brother to get ready for an eviction notice. It might all seem a bit dramatic and excessive, but this isn’t a story about a slumlord with anger issues, it’s a story of a law that has been enforced too selectively and too sparingly since it came into our lives just a few short months ago.
An officer showed up within ten minutes and consulted with the landlord, who was now calm, composed, and polite—a drastic change from the threshold of violence that he bordered on just a few minutes before. She then asked to speak to my brother. She informed him that our band practice was in violation of the city’s noise ordinance, and that we would have to stop. The level of violation, 65 decibels during the day, is easy to be broken. RVA photographer Ian Graham found a few months ago that if you stand on a downtown city street, the general noise that you hear will be in violation of the ordinance. My brother asked if the regulation wasn’t a bit impractical, to which the officer coolly replied, “We don’t make the laws, but we do enforce them.”
So, Richmond, here’s my call to you. Get the noise ordinance law enforced. Get it enforced every day. Richmond has done a great job cracking down on musical performances, but this crime is rampant everywhere you walk in the city. It’s not just limited to musical performance. Despite the desire of the officer who spoke to my brother to enforce the law she is sworn to uphold, she can’t do it without the help of Richmond’s citizens. There are simply too many violations for her to keep up with. Dogs bark. Cars are noisy. People are conversing, damn it.
The city knows that “excessive sound is a serious hazard to the public health, welfare, peace and safety and the quality of life.” You are, when you walk the streets of Richmond, putting your health at risk. It’s time to take back your safety. Call the police whenever you walk by a bar at night. It’s your right, and they are in the wrong for assaulting your ears. I play soccer again on Sunday, and I want to be able to enjoy my game without subjective myself to aural violence. I will surely be calling the police to report that the referee’s whistle is a crucial infringement against the law and my personal rights.
The city spent a sizeable chunk of many purchasing devices that measure sound levels so they can objectively enforce the new ordinance. Let’s help them achieve that objectivity. If music is illegal, then so must be everything else. The police want to enforce this law that they take no responsibility for. Help them do so. Let’s fill the air with the legal, ear piercing, freedom bearing sounds of police sirens rushing to the scene. Only then can we enjoy the utter, lifeless silence that the city has declared is our right.
Call the police every day when you hear someone breaking the ordinance. Only when all of the noise tyrants have been suppressed can we live in peace.
