Noise

A recent joint venture between Student Senate and the Grand Forks City Council brought new light to the controversial "noisy party" city ordinance, which gives area police the authority to disperse gatherings and fine homeowners based on whether they perceive a party of two or more people causing "unreasonable noise likely to cause significant discomfort" to a "reasonable person of normal sensitivities."

According to a Grand Forks Herald report, Student Senator Michael Rocks-McQueen challenged the constitutionality of the law, citing a similar law in Virginia Beach, Va. that was struck down on those grounds.

The question posed by Rocks-McQueen is a valid one. The ordinance has been an annoyance and a burden to many in the community, with a heavy emphasis on UND students. It places subjectivity at the center of affairs, giving Grand Forks officers grounds to enter the homes of "anyone suspected of having a 'Loud Party'."

According to the law, the officer need only assert that the party was audible "fifty feet from the structure," or "in the adjacent hallway or apartment" in the case of an apartment building.

The situation created by the ordinance is simply too abstract- the defending property owner or renter is left with almost no avenue of recourse, and the case against that party sits on faulted foundations.

Since the law entered effect, students have also complained of a prosecution bias toward UND students by campus police. No definitive assertions on this topic can be made at this point, as the University Police Department has yet to publicize statistics describing patterns of enforcement for the noise ordinance.

It's an important question that needs an answer at some point down the road, however. If students are facing a level of investigation that is out of order with what is reasonable under law, then the validity of the law as it is currently written has to be called into question.

Members of Student Senate are justified in pursuing this line of inquiry, and should continue down a constructive path toward a satisfactory solution. It there merit to the grounds that the "Noisy Party" ordinance is unconstitutional? That question will need to be addressed further.

In any case, we think it is clear that the ordinance still demands a fix, though it has been on the books for several years now.

The student community needs to work together with University Police and with city officials in order to find an appropriate response to issues being raised about the ordinance. The law could benefit from considerable revision, and if it is in fact unconstitutional, it should be dropped from the books altogether.