Blog: Noise about noise

A leaf blower ban? Really? I’m all for legislating how much noise people can make, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been an amplified professional with wicked tinnitus for just about the entirety of my adult life, and I appreciate the incalculable value of people being quiet. But leaf blowers? If we’re going to specify aural nuisances, then let’s at least be thorough.

As I type, a car alarm is wailing 17 floors down and I’m certain that it is affecting my blood pressure. Ban ‘em. And the motorcycle clubs that roar up and down the Pali Highway on weekend mornings. I work at night, man, and that V-Twin is totally harshing my chi. Also, there is a guy with a freight-train car horn that loses it now and then in my neighborhood, shuddering me from a quarter-mile away. I’d like to have him incarcerated, please.

And let us not forget that leaf blowers are not the only landscaping tool that shatters the quiet. Their din is often preceded by the insistent whine of weed whackers, the lumbering drone of lawn mowers, and the staccato declarations of hedge trimmers. Why were they not included in the civic moratorium? I’d like for anyone operating a chipper-shredder within 500 yards of me when I’m sleeping to be summarily executed. Let’s put that to a referendum.

I support any effort to make people shut-the-f-up. Not in a gut-the-First Amendment, throttle-the-Fourth Estate kind of way, but in the “Hey, people are trying to sleep/work/watch PBS over here” kind of way.

I used to live next to a neighbor who owned an exotic bird with a call that could induce involuntary body functions in humans. My last neighbor owned a dog the size of a large avocado, which was possessed of an improbably giant bark that never stopped. I think I can still hear it from where I sit now. I’m against animal cruelty, so can’t we levy a noise tax on pet owners inured to the ceaseless racket their animals make? Charge them by the hour, and put the money toward education. Hawaii would lead the world in brainy kids.

And do the sirens of emergency vehicles have to be so loud? Why do I have to be jangled from slumber because some ass overcooked his bacon and set off a fire alarm in my zip code? Or some idiot took out a fire hydrant while driving and texting?

Also, the Civil Defense sirens. When was the last time we needed them? Well, maybe I should just keep quiet.

See City and County of Honolulu Bill 38 here. The bill, introduced by Councilperson Ann Kobayashi might make it unlawful at any time to operate a gas-powered leaf blower.