By Richard Dyer
Twitter: @RHDyer

Apache Junction is rolling out technology to help keep things quiet around town and better pinpoint potential noise violations.

Determining if music or other noises in Apache Junction are too loud now will be done with a decibel meter read 20 feet from the building of whoever makes a complaint, the City Council decided Tuesday, Aug. 18, in a 6-1 vote.

The move ended debate about how the city should handle noise issues, some of which recently centered on one local business and one neighborhood.

If meter finds the noise to be too loud, a police officer would issue a warning for the first violation.

“So essentially if there is a decibel violation, the officer will give the person a warning; so they get a free warning, essentially,” City Attorney Joel Stern said at the council’s Aug. 18 meeting.

Residents or businesses would have to remain noise complaint-free for roughly the next two months to have the slate wiped clean and start over, Mr. Stern said.

“If there is no violation in the next 60 days — from that first warning — and say they have a violation on day 62, the officer comes out, does the decibel reading, and says ‘OK, you have a violation,’ the code says they get another warning. That’s what you all wanted,” he said.

Warnings will be documented in a computer-aided dispatch system so the officer will know how many and when warnings or citations were given, Mr. Stern said.

“So, if there’s a violation two days later, the officer comes out, does the decibel readings, says ‘OK, you’re in violation. The code says if you haven’t had a violation in the past 60 days, then I could have given you another warning, but it’s only been two days, so I’m sorry, you’re going to get a citation’ or a long-form complaint if the person can’t be located. And so that’s what this language does,” he said. “I think that’s what the council wanted and you wanted to take the discretion away from the officer so that the officer is not placed in a very awkward position.”

Any ordinance violation is punishable with civil and class 1 misdemeanor criminal consequences consistent with the Apache Junction City Code, according to city documents.

The City Council voted on three items pertaining to the change, passing two unanimously. On the consideration of an ordinance amending the City Code under offenses, the vote was 6-1, with Councilmember Gail Evans voting no.

“I think in doing this we got a lot of things right, staff put a lot of work into this in a short period of time and our city — we have a noise problem with one business and one neighborhood and that’s why we’re here,” she said.

The City Council has had previous discussions about noise complaints from residents who live near Hitching Post Saloon, 2341 N. Apache Trail, which hosts outdoor bull riding and other events.

“Our previous noise ordinance had worked for a number of years. This brings us into 2020 using a decibel meter and taking it out of the officer’s discretion. I’m not comfortable with the decibel chart that we have,” Ms. Evans said.

Questions raised

Several Apache Junction residents spoke about the changes at a public hearing prior to the City Council vote.

“There’s a clause in this that says that if my property has a higher decibel level tolerance and it’s next to a property — such as a residential, which has a lower — that I’m in compliance but not in compliance on the residential property. I’m going to be penalized because the residential property is lower than my industrial-zoned property,” Apache Junction resident Dirk Begeman said. “Does that make sense to you? I’m in compliance on my property, but not in compliance to my neighbor’s property, and I’m going to get in trouble? That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Any violations should be a civil matter and not a criminal violation, Apache Junction resident Jeff Bartlett said.

“I also feel that the fines should not be excessive on this, and I also feel we should support officer discretion and it would give our police officers, who serve and protect us every day, the decision to decide if this should be a violation or not — to decide if they should issue a citation,” he said.

“For the record, I too supported the discretion, but kind of felt like I didn’t have any support up here for that,” Mayor Jeff Serdy said after Mr. Bartlett’s comments.

Apache Junction resident Mehmood Mohiuddin, owner of the Hitching Post Saloon, said his business is 473 yards from residential uses.

“I’ll be safe. I designed my system; I’m not worried about it. But ... if the decibel meter for the music or the announcer does not exceed more than 65, if the public sitting over there watching entertainment, if public makes a noise — nobody ever controls what the public is going to do — is the public going to get the citation or the owner of the business going to get the citation?” he asked.

Apache Junction resident George Schroeder said his neighbors have complained to police about his music and he has been told by police that he was making too much noise.

“Well, last time it was my TV. The Emmy Awards or something. And he keeps coming closer to the house and he still couldn’t hear it,” Mr. Schroeder said of the responding officer. “But yet I’m the bad guy, ‘You’re making too much noise,’ because he favored my neighbor.”

Prior to the meeting, Mr. Bartlett said he is against the city paying for decibel meters.

“I oppose the use of decibel meters, I personally don’t feel that this is something the city should be paying for, and I personally don’t like the idea of the government using a decibel meter to try to measure how much noise we are making,” he said in an email. “I also feel that our local businesses have gone through enough unnecessary regulations during the pandemic and this would just be another regulation that our local businesses would have to deal with.”

Council discussion

“This is basically the same noise ordinance that we had. The only big difference is we haven’t put our police officers in the middle of any situation. We’ve said, ‘Here’s an instrument, take the instrument and measure it,’” Councilmember Robin Barker said prior to the vote.

A household refrigerator generates about 55 decibels in a house, Vice Mayor Chip Wilson said.

“Laughter — tell a joke and start laughing — is anywhere from 60 to 65 dB normally.... Those measurements are done at approximately 3-foot away from the person or the refrigerator,” he said prior to the vote.

“Right now the highest we would allow is 70 dB in an industrial area. So it is very lenient, it is trying to work with the community to come up with what’s best not only for the businesses, but also the residents of the area in trying to get this set up so we can all meet the goal of getting along and working together as a community,” Mr. Wilson said.

Councilmember Christa Rizzi asked what the police department does when there is a complaint of crowd noise.

“What about crowds? Mr. Mohiuddin also brought up, if you had a crowd of people and the people are yelling or whatever — I understand it’s up to the business owner to try to control if there’s an issue — but that’s also a good point,” she said.

“It depends if there is a group of people in the parking lot causing the disturbance or if it’s because of the event and business owner and what’s going on inside the business,” AJPD Cmdr. Troy Mullender said.

Richard Dyer
Managing Editor | East Valley
@RHDyer

rdyer@iniusa.org

Richard Dyer has worked at Independent Newsmedia, Inc.. USA, since 1987. Since 2009, he has worked as a volunteer to design The Blue Guitar Magazine, Blue Guitar Jr. magazine and Unstrung magazine, which are projects of The Arizona Consortium for the Arts; and since 2014, has been overseeing the art submissions. He also is an artist of welded-steel sculptures, selling his artwork at juried and non-juried art shows