Monday, February 13, 2006
Congratulations it’s your 22nd Birthday. You and your two roommates throw a small party to celebrate your approach to the next milestone of car rental age. A few friends who smoke come over to join in the festivities, so they sit on the porch much like people at the other three or four parties on the block. A cranky neighbor one block away complains about some other house and everyone on the street with music and joy is suddenly being written up without warning. You and your roommates are each given a separate ticket. Not only are you fined for disturbing the peace but you’re going to be evicted and stopped from graduation. Oh yeah, Happy Birthday!
Sounds ridiculous? The above scenario actually happened until the eviction part. This new punishment became law last Tuesday. KU preventing graduation could become a reality unless we decide that it’s time to fight back for a sensible and equitable law.
The city council’s actions in recent months are treating students like second-class citizens. Last year the noise ordinance was modified by the Lawrence City Commission allowing officers to cite people without any complaint and based solely on their own opinion. In other words, any anonymous person, whether they’re a neighbor or an officer having a bad night, can lead to you being ticketed without warning on standards that don’t exist.
Last Tuesday the problem became even worse. On your second charge the city now has permission to fine you $1,000 and turn off your utilities. Apparently being innocent before proven guilty no longer applies to students. The mere presence of an unsubstantiated charge can lead you to no longer having electricity, gas or water.
It gets worse. Members of our community, including my landlord Serena Hearns in a recent interview with The Lawrence Journal-World, want the University to start acting as a parent and to discipline students for off-campus behavior such as stopping them from graduating. I wish I were making this up but they actually think adults who pay thousands of dollars to live in a house that has a hole in the door should now be babysat by school officials.
Do students need to be good neighbors? Yes. Should they keep the noise down and clean up their yards afterwards? Unquestionably. Should a law that includes jail time, significant fines and the ability to turn off a person’s gas during winter be completely subjective? No.
The lack of standards gives crackpots an institutional tool for harassment. They can drive around and anonymously report any house with people outside. Officers not knowing which house on a block is the particular problem instead punish the entire block with no warning for an opportunity to quiet things down, ergo the citation on your birthday.
How loud is too loud and why don’t we have standards? David Corliss, assistant city manager for legal services in a Journal-World article last June said, “Some communities use them because it’s a less arbitrary system. We haven’t gotten to that point yet.”
We reached that point long ago. The number of citations is escalating and the city is not going to risk a lucrative policy, politically or financially, unless we fight for a better law.
An officer doesn’t estimate you were speeding. He uses a radar gun and measures to see if you exceeded a predetermined limit. Cities such as Austin, Texas have a reasonable 80 decibel limit. Instead of vague regulations from nameless individuals let us create a fair and sensible system that treats us all justly.
LaMort is a Cherryvale senior in psychology and political science.
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