PORT ANGELES — An overflow crowd of more than 120 people had one thunderous message for Clallam County commissioners Tuesday:
Don’t adopt a proposed public disturbance noises ordinance.
They effectively silenced the draft law that Sheriff Bill Benedict had sought.
Instead, he’ll take the larger issue of noisy public disturbance to his Sheriff’s Citizens Advisory Committee, he said after the hearing.
He’ll also research what civil remedies unwilling listeners can seek rather than resorting to criminal actions.
Only a few persons spoke in support of the draft ordinance, and they talked about inconsiderate motocross riders on homemade tracks.
Of the other 40-some speakers, most said the proposed law was vague, too broad and outlawed too many potentially annoying activities for the sins of a few people.
Benedict had told the crowd that the sheriff’s department presently has no ordinance under which it can intervene in a neighbor-to-neighbor noise dispute, except in a case of amplified music.
Noise complaints also can get out of hand, he said.
For instance, deputies recently stopped one aggrieved Gales Addition resident from enforcing peace and quiet with a shotgun, Benedict said.
“We need a tool that we can fall back on if the art of negotiation and encouragement fail,” he said.
The proposed ordinance was modeled almost word for word on one adopted by other Washington counties, according to Benedict, where it was rarely enforced.
And the crux of those laws was the notion of “reasonable,” he said.
The proposal would have outlawed any noise that “unreasonably disturbs the comfort, peace or repose of another person or persons” — but only as a last resort, he said.
Most people in the crowd were having none of his explanation.
