On July 15, 2004, Detroit's city council unanimously decided to ban all music in vehicles that can be clearly heard from up to ten feet away.

The ordinance was drafted because Councilwoman Barbara-Rose Collins says that when one drives up to a car with a boom box blaring, 'your heart is beating out of your chest,' as told to the Detroit Free Press.

In accordance with the ordinance, if drivers are playing their music too loudly, a first offense brings a $100 fine, a second offense brings a $200 fine, and a third offense brings a $300 dollar fine and a possible 90 days in jail. If the ordinance is not vetoed by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, it will go into effect by next week.

The main concern with this new noise free ordinance is the concern that city police may target young people.

Detroit is not the only city that is concerned with noise. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City has made an issue of noise in the city. In June 2004, Mayor Bloomerberg announced that he intends to make a complete revision of the 30 year old Noise Code that the city lives by. This comes after the city's 311 hotline receives over 1,000 phone calls per day with complaints over the noise in the city. Operation Silent Night, initiated in 2002, outlines a focus on five specific areas. These areas are related to commercial music, construction site noise, noise from air conditioning units, simplifying enforcement of noise levels from the use of decibel levels to the use of 'plainly audible' levels, and changing the vagueness of the old Code's language in order to more effectively determine what noise is breaking the code. This last clause in Operation Silent Night allows for the city to more effectively distribute summonses.

While Detroit and New York are taking proactive measures to reduce the noise complaints in the cities, some of the residents might be turned off to turning down the sound.


Lisette Barranco
NYC