Noise ordinance targets businesses
Madison’s City Council is cracking down on noise, particularly that generated by businesses located near residential areas.
The council passed an amendment to the current noise ordinance, limiting the amount of noise a delivery truck can make before 7 a.m. The ordinance targets noise created by street sweepers, garbage trucks and delivery trucks, late at night or early in the morning.
The noise ordinance passed by a vote of five yes votes and and two abstentions. Councilmen Tim Holcombe, District 1 and Larry Vannoy, District 6, abstained, saying though each supported doing something about the problem, they wanted to take a closer look and see if there was a better way to find a compromise between the business owners and residents.
Vannoy said since he has been on council he has never had a complaint about any of the business in his district, the largest of which being Kroger. He felt spelling out a blanket policy across the whole city was not the right course of action.
He said the current ordinance does not differentiate between a business adjacent to a residential property and businesses that are not, and since ordinances like this are often complaint driven he felt there should be a more specific wording to the addition to the noise ordinance.
"I would hope we could roll that in somehow, that it has to be adjacent to a residential area," Vannoy said.
Holcombe felt that the ordinance was unfair to delivery trucks who sometimes start before 7 a.m. in the morning.
