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Officials promise action this Fourth
by Robb Fulcher
After hearing from an overflow crowd of fed-up residents last Thursday, the city council agreed to take more aggressive action to control drunkenness, rowdiness and illegal fireworks next Fourth of July and to reduce year-round noise from bar patrons wandering through residential areas at closing time.
Council members said they might begin requiring party permits for private gatherings of more than 100 persons and billing party hosts when police are called out a second time to hush a loud gathering.
Such a bill could total between $300 and $500, or in some cases as much as $1,500, city officials said. The bill would be sent to the property owner if a party host does not come forward to accept responsibility.
Council members also discussed their plan to make it easier for police to enforce the town's noise ordinance by eliminating a requirement that officials use machines to measure decibel levels of party noise.
The proposed change would replace complicated decibel readings with a "reasonable person standard" that would set the level of noise that may not legally cross property lines.
On the subject of bars near residential neighborhoods, council members said they might encourage the establishments to remind their patrons to be quiet and refrain from urinating outdoors, possibly through messages printed on cocktail napkins, as bars in some other cities do.
A majority of the council members pledged to make the bars eliminate outdoor speakers for music, and to keep their windows and doors closed to muffle noise. The bars are already required to do those things under terms of the conditional use permits they receive from the city, council members said.
The council heard from residents who called for a variety of measures ranging from public education programs concerning illegal fireworks to sweeps of the beach by lines of police on the Fourth.
Resident Jerry Costello was among those who recalled Fourth of July disturbances in the 1970s that were often characterized as riots, and warned that future Independence Day celebrations could resemble those days.
"I think we are closer to that anarchy than people realize. I think it's a juggernaut," Costello said.
"I think the city should be run for the residents, not for people who come here once a year," he continued.
Pete Tucker, a city planning commissioner, was among those who said that officials have coddled the controversial "Ironman" chugalug, a 26-year-old Independence Day event in which about 150 people run on the beach, paddle in the ocean and chug a six-pack of beer, then usually vomit.
'If you and I had that party, we'd be thrown in jail. They practically blocked off the street; it was like a city-sponsored event. People probably think, 'They're getting away with it in the north part of town, we'll do it here too,'" Tucker said. ER