This is another example of the government(in this case, local government) overstepping it's boundries...DEARBORN HEIGHTS, Mich., June 9 (UPI) -- City officials in Dearborn Heights, Mich., say they may ban ice cream truck drivers from playing music because residents think it's too loud.
The city council is preparing to pass an ordinance Tuesday, permitting drivers to sound bells only as they are making an ice cream sale, The Detroit News reported.
Drivers say the ordinance is unreasonable and poses a major threat to their sales.
"You're just going to be driving down the streets and the kids won't hear you coming." driver Dominic Amato, 19, said.
City leaders defend the proposed rule, saying it is intended to keep the peace in local neighborhoods.
Nobody finds ice-cream vendors more annoying or more creepy than me(only clowns, carnies, and midgets are creepier). That said, does hearing Scott Joplin's The Entertainer in peircing, electronic monotone a couple of times a week, as irritating as it is, really necessitate banning that practice altogether, if playing the music is an essential part of conducting business?
The question is, does the vendor's 1st amendment right to conduct business supercede the community's excessive noise ordinances? My answer is yes, and I can see this case working it's way up the appeals-courts.
1 comment:
Hearing that music is how you know that the ice cream man was coming! Someone high up in Michigan was probably trying to concentrate one day and heard the noise and decided since he had the power to end this noise, he would abuse that power.
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