A March 12 Colorado Senate hearing promises to kick up quite a racket — and not only because the subject is a possible change to the state’s noise ordinance. Attendees are expected to include folks who already feel the sounds in their neighborhood are too loud, including members of the grassroots Ford Hurts Families organization currently suing the owners of acclaimed Colorado Springs concert site Ford Amphitheater over their alleged unwillingness to dial down the music.
A February 21 Ford Hurts Families post entitled “Speak Now or Forever Live With Blank Checks for Unlimited Noise” describes the proposal, Senate Bill 26-098, as an attempt by “Big Entertainment” to “forever allow local governments to grant blank checks for unlimited noise. This is not a minor policy tweak — it is a fundamental rollback of uniform statewide noise pollution safeguards that have protected Coloradans for over 50 years.”
Senator Matt Ball, a Democrat representing District 10 in Denver, is a co-sponsor of the proposition, and he characterizes it very differently. In his words, “Senate Bill 98 restores local control over noise regulation. For decades, cities and towns across Colorado had the authority to issue noise permits for specific events. That longstanding practice changed after the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling in Hobbs v. Salida last year, which limited local governments’ ability to grant those permits to private parties.”…