St. Pete Times column

[fltoddy]

Deputy Michael Parks, I owe you dinner! Loud car stereos are a huge public nuisance and lead to a perception of lawlessness in neighborhoods where it is unchecked. It's the equivalent of a male dog peeing on a bush, it's a knucklehead's way of marking their territory. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal. But, to an honest, hard working, tax paying citizen it is demoralizing to not be able to enjoy your home because of these punks.
Just by writing this single citation, you have outperformed the entire city of Tampa's police department for the past 18 months (reference the last four paragraphs).. Thanks for enforcing this statute!

"Young Driver Runs Into Rap Trap

By DANIEL RUTH

Published: Jul 14, 2007

You might say young Master Anthony Gordon's taste for dreadfully bad,
horribly bad, truly, truly, truly ineptly bad rap music while driving cost
him considerably more than 50 cent.

There was Gordon, blissfully motoring along McFarland Road on a recent
afternoon, coming home after a workout, when he was stopped by Hillsborough
County sheriff's Deputy Michael Park, who apparently was on music critic
patrol.

Gordon had not been speeding. He had stopped at the stop sign. And yet the
18-year-old recent Chamberlain High School graduate arrived home with a
ticket, which would cost him $76.

His crime? It seems Gordon was in violation of a state motor vehicle
statute: "Operation of Soundmaking Devices in Motor Vehicles." Catchy title.

According to the law, which went into effect last year, motorists can find
themselves in trouble if sounds coming from their vehicles "can be clearly
heard outside the vehicle by a person using his normal hearing faculties, at
a distance of 25 feet or more from a motor vehicle."


Auditory Training


As Park was writing the ticket, Gordon asked the officer how he could tell
he was in violation of the law. "He said he had been trained by his ear,"
Gordon sighed. "I didn't want to argue with him." Good idea.

You would think because Gordon hadn't been speeding or committing some other
moving violation, perhaps Park could have cut the soon-to-be Florida Gulf
Coast University student a break and let him off with a warning to turn the
channel to National Public Radio.

But he didn't.

"I don't know," Gordon mused. "Maybe he had to meet a quota, or maybe he
didn't like the music."

Park did not return a call. But sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway said
officers have some discretion between issuing a ticket or merely a warning.


Ravel's 'Bolero'


Because Park was homing in on Gordon's car with a speed gun, which also
calculates distance, Callaway noted that the deputy was able to hear the
loud music from 202 feet, or 67 yards away.

As sympathetic as one might be with Gordon's plight, being subjected to
Eminem at 202 feet away certainly has to be a crime against something.

It's entirely possible that had this young man been listening to Ravel's
"Bolero," or "Sinatra At The Sands," just maybe the long arm of the law
might have been shortened a bit.

Neither the sheriff's office nor the Tampa Police Department offers special
training for officers in determining when a motorist might be in violation
of the "Soundmaking" statute.

Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said that since the new statute went into
effect, not a single citation has been issued in the city, so you might say
Gordon is something of a toe-tapping scofflaw trailblazer.

Callaway could not say how many other drivers have been cited. But he noted
that the subject of music blaring from cars almost always comes up at town
meetings with citizen groups.

"It's a quality of life issue."

Realizing he probably can't beat this rap, young Master Gordon said he would
probably just pay the fine and move on - with the volume turned down, way
down, preferably humming along to a nice, sedate Chopin etude."

Ol' Daniel Ruth is up to his old tricks I see. He sorta gives both sides to the story but he is obviously sypathetic to the young man's "plight" and feels he is being discriminated against for his musical tastes.
The solution to this is to FLOOD the Tampa Tribune's mail and email box with letters supporting deputies who write loud music citations.
Personally I would prefer deputies write a ticket to someone in my neighborhood for loud music rather than if they were going a little over the speed limit.

[fltoddy]

I agree in that Ruth often uses sarcasm that is lost on the people that should learn the most. However, as a silver lining I'm going to post his column on the TPD board and see if anyone can tell me why in the entire city (which includes Ybor City and College Hill mind you) they haven't written a single "boom car" ticket in 18 months. That's pretty embarrassing.

And I agree that boom cars bother me much more than speeders. Our Deputies are unfortunately so jammed up with calls (some of which are utter waste of time calls) that it's hard for them to do a lot of proactive work on this issue. That's a shame especially since it (boom cars / house parties) was one of the top 3 complaints on Sheriff Gee's neighborhood survey and he gets pounded about it at town hall meetings.

Madison, WI has a program that allows citizen's to file a complaint and a citation is issued to the registered owner. If Florida could ever get over the obsession with protecting the rights of those who violate the law, that would seem to be a pretty good idea.

I agree that the citizens of this county should not have to be subjected to the windows of their car and house rattling because Joe punk wanna-be thug is playing his rap music loud enough to be heard 4 blocks away. Have you ever actually looked at the majority of idiots that blare this crap out their windows. I guess it must be required that you wear your ball cap on sideways, a wife beater t-shirt and hang your arm out of the window. You must also have rims on the car that cost more then the car itself and have the look on your face that you are cooler then the North pole. I personally laugh at each of these idiots and long for the day that agencies properly enforce the law on this. These are quality of life issues that go a long way in improving the ever growing negative trends of this county. I too think it is sad that the Tampa Police Dept has never written a single ticket for a issue that is State Law and important to the citizens of this county.

Most of these half-wits listening to that ghetto scum trash so-called music could play it as loud as they wanted if they would just roll their windows up while doing so. But NOOOOOOOOO...they have to roll their windows down so everyone else has to listen to it. they are insecure little babies who have to get everyone's attention..."look at me! look at me!"
Mommy took them off of the teet too soon so now they need attention. Give it to them in the form of a traffic citation.

The TPD PIO had bad information. Officers on their message board are indicating that many, many citations have been written for this infraction. Way to go TPD! Keep up the good work.

And just what would happen if these mobile concerts made it a point to drive by Mr. Ruth's house at all hours of the day and night?

You can bet he would write a column on how the cops "do nothing" about these quality of life issues.