Woman wants to muffle sounds of bar bands
By NANCY KIMBALL
The Daily Inter Lake
Miantae McConnell is having trouble sleeping nights, and she thinks it's high time the city did something about it.
Her sleeplessness has nothing to do with insomnia, but it has everything to do with bar bands. Loud bar bands that play until 3 o'clock in the morning, she says.
They send their unwelcome tunes across the rocky, noise-carrying substrate of downtown Columbia Falls and into her otherwise peaceful house on First Avenue East, according to the children's book author who works from her home.
After 4 1/2 years of living there, she's had it.
"My whole house becomes like a speaker box," she told the City Council Monday night.
She said the city needs a noise ordinance. Council members thought they had one. So, apparently, did other city officials.
It turns out they're wrong. In the past, the city has just operated on common sense and common courtesy.
McConnell said the new owner of a bar on Nucleus Avenue, a block or so from her home, was asked by police to quiet down - twice - during one late-night rock session. He refused, she said.
"I work at home and I can't continue to do that," she said. If no noise ordinance is enacted, she added, "that is a signal that you don't want [people] to live in this part of town, that you want them to move out."
City Attorney Eric Kaplan said some cities, such as Missoula, have a noise ordinance. Others such as Kalispell don't. Enforcement could be tricky, he said.
"You'd need sophisticated decibel-measuring equipment," Kaplan said, and enforcement hours and geographic boundaries. The council would have to decide "whether you want to do all that."
The short estimate to research and pass a local ordinance is six months, City Manager Bill Shaw and Police Chief Dave Perry told her. It could take a couple of years.
Shaw said standards vary from state to state. What's enforceable in Washington - booming car speakers that assault ear drums from 75 feet away is one example he gave - may not be enforceable in Montana.
Council member Don Barnhart was concerned that McConnell was talking about a residential area directly abutting a commercial area. He's been at the controls of plenty of early morning snow plows when local stores need their lots cleared.
"If Smith's can't clear snow before 6 a.m." to make way for predawn delivery trucks, Barnhart said, "it would keep them from doing business."
McConnell assured him her concern focused on loud music at bars. An ordinance could set standards and exceptions for all businesses.
"We should say what's OK for residential areas," she said.
"We can't pass a noise ordinance in a whole district when only one or two businesses are the problem," Barnhart said. "We should come up with something else."
"Isn't that even more prejudicial?" she countered.
Council members directed Shaw to do some research, put together a council committee to consider options, then bring it back for discussion.
Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com