MPR: Fighting Noise with Noise

Fighting Noise with Noise
By Bob Reha
November 2, 1999

It's getting harder and harder to find a quiet spot away from the screeches and crashes of modern life. Small-town Minnesota is no exception. In Battle Lake, Minnesota, in the heart of lake country, some city officials thought they'd found a creative solution, but have since drawn national attention, and sparked a debate over whether listening to certain popular music is a pleasure or punishment.

THE MAIN STREET OF BATTLE LAKE is a quiet place these days. Fall leaves have replaced summers crowds and traffic blowing down the street. Milt Kopet owns a hardware store on Battle Lake's Main Street. While he likes the summer business, there are some things he doesn't miss.

Kopet: Driving with windows down and the levels cranked up so high in the vehicles, it's actually... We have quarter-inch plate-glass windows on the store and we've had it where it actually shakes the windows in the store.

There are other sounds that break the idyllic setting of Battle Lake - mowers, loud parties, machinery, barking dogs and loud cars. So like many communities, Battle Lake has passed a noise ordinance. But Mayor Bobbi Tamke says this ordinance has a creative clause that she hopes will be a deterrent to lawbreakers, with special attention paid to music violators

Tamke:A nd the penalty for the first violation is an hour of community service, that being and not limited to listening to an hour of music of our choice, the city's choice and we have some selections that are Lawrence Welk and James Galloway flute music and Box Car Willie and John Denver.

The noise ordinance went on the books in September. So far, no one has been arrested for violating the ordinance, but there is a certain amount of volume coming out of the debate.

Jalmstad: I did give one warning and it was kind of a baited situation. The former chief of police Cecil, Cecil Wheelie, had told me before the ordinance went into affect that he was going to be the first violator.

Battle Lake chief of police Joe Jalmstad.

Jalmstad: And he was going to play his Polka music and see if he got to listen to the Bee Gees and Lawrence Welk cause he liked that type of music.

Jalmstad says the ordinance has gotten people's attention. He says while most people focus on the part of the ordinance that requires community service of listening to the music of the city's choice, there are options, a fine or community service work such as picking up trash or cleaning public toilets. Jalmstad says reaction to the ordinance has broken down into groups that support it, those that think it's silly and plan violations.

Jalmstad: And then you've got the young people which have been surprisingly interested in finding out what constitutes a violation. I actually had a group from the high school up. They're going to do a story in the school paper about the ordinance.

Jalmstad says he expects local kids will respect the ordinance. He doesn't think it will create any more work for his department. He says it's simply an effort to put people on notice to be more respectful of other people's rights to a quieter environment. But some people are upset about the law. These are not folks wondering about the constitutionality of what some might consider cruel and unusual punishment. No, these are people who feel their taste is being questioned. Mayor Bobbi Tamke got a phone call from a woman who learned about the ordinance on the Internet.

Tamke: She's very upset that we were using Bee Gee music as a sort of punishment and that the people on the Internet, we're all going ballistic because they had this fan club and she said "I have 17 Bee Gees CD's." She said, "The only music that is played in my brand-new Volvo is Bee Gees' music."

Shotsnyder: Having to pay a fine to go up and listen to Lawrence Welk or somebody else's music for an hour is, that's malarkey.

Don Shotsnyder is one of two Battle Lake city council members to vote against the ordinance. Shotsnyder supports the intent of the ordinance, obviously wishes his colleagues had stuck to a fine the appropriate penalty. He says he'd like to amend the ordinance to make it a bit more specific. And he's not happy about some of the national attention the ordinance has drawn.

Shotsnyder: It kind of P.O.'s me because we got to be a laughing stock and I mean I got telephone calls from Chicago radio stations wondering about this deal. We don't need this kind of publication.

Shotsnyder believes that once a few people are arrested for violating the ordinance and pay a fine, interest will die off. He plans to work to amend the ordinance to eliminate the community service provision that calls for the listening sessions. Until then city officials say the ordinance will be enforced.

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