Editor,
Well, the BBB motorcycle weekend is well underway and it’s only Thursday. Living above North Main Street means the assault on peace and even conversation has begun. But wait, you say. We have a noise ordinance. The signs at the entrances to town say this.
So when my wife and I cannot have a conversation on our deck, when we cannot hear the TV voices, when open-pipe bikes are revved over and over, we must certainly be mistaken. When bikers care so little for the town they are visiting that their sound systems drown out even normal conversation from a block away, we must be imagining things. We have a strict noise ordinance. The signs say so.
I am not going to be so naïve as to think the town is going to turn off bikers and their tourist dollars, but perhaps the town should give at least a tiny consideration to the citizens who live here.
How about this? We can’t, or won’t, govern or enforce our ordinance against the sound of the bikes in general. So how about just amending the ordinance and enforcing it against the most egregious sound pollution from the cruising bikes? The music. The sound systems. The music is so loud from these cruising machines that speech is impaired, if not impossible.
Notify biker organizations that motorcycle sound systems are not allowed to be used inside the city limits. Post this restriction and then enforce it. It’s very easy to hear a bike sound system. It’s so loud it can be heard blocks away. It is an outrageous abuse to the citizens who welcome these, “tourists,” who don’t have the decency to respect the place they visit. When? How about 10:30 at night and 7 in the morning.
If there is so little consideration on the part of bikers for the residents ES, the consideration has to come from the town that accepts tax money from these abused citizens.
Amend the ordinance to enforce a prohibition of use of noise polluting sound systems.
Otherwise take down the silly noise ordinance signs. At least be intellectually honest. If you can hear.
Dennis Pappenfus