Legal Opinion Wanted....out law boat music???

This is L.A. CO. Parks Code. Can this be used against wakeboats? Would it stick? This is what Castaic is trying to enforce. Thanks for the opinions. scott

>>17.04.435 Disturbances prohibited.

A person shall not disturb the peace and quiet of any park by:

A. Any unduly loud or unusual noise; or

B. Tooting, blowing or sounding any siren, horn, signal or noise-making device; or

C. Any obscene, violent or riotous conduct; or

D. The use of any vulgar, profane or indecent language therein. (Ord. 10309 Art. 3 § 38, 1971.)<<

Yes it would stick, but the cops need somebody to sign a Citizens arrest to enforce it since Peace Officers cannot be distrubed by noise. It would stick, no jail time, just a fine. I would say impossible to enforce on a busy weekend.

I have no problem with that. In CO we have decibel level laws. Seen a few tickets given for the ghetto blasters.

They do it for loud cars, why not load boats. I'm all for it personally. People just don't understand how well sound carries over water. If you have a speaker system loud enough for the rider to hear it, everyone within sight of your boat can hear it just as well when the speakers are pointed in their direction. I personally don't want to listen to your music.

I will agree with that..Ive always had the philophosy of "What makes you think I want to listen to your music?"

I Think There is a Time and Place for this kind of thing. (listing to loud Music and partying) However I respect your right to not be blasted out of your boat with blaring music from my boat when you’re just kicking it with your family. It would suck to be away from everyone else partying with your friends "not bothering anyone" and they (the law) could use this to come up on you and hassle you. If there house's around or your at the dock ect and it's late Yes you need to enforce some kind of quite Zone or time. I don't like it when they start coming up with all these laws to protect us from what?? I would rather we use form's like this one to educate people to be respectful so we don't need laws like this.

I do most of my riding on Lake Havasu where everything is loud. Yes my boat has a loud system in it, yes I like to listen to it when I ride, and yes you may not like my music; however I look at it this way. If I'm there first then you should deal with it or go somewhere else. If your there first then I'll ask before I turn it up or I won't at all. To have to use boat patrol to control something like soundsystems out on the water ways is wasteful and unneccessary. Exceptions like marinas are a little different but if I'm up in the cove at castaic and riding, someone else shows up and doesn't like 50cent blasting then come tell me to turn it down, don't send ranger rick out to do it for you when he should be keeping the peace at the ramp. Hell last weekend i played requests for the other boat riding in the same cove as us, they were stoked!!! You know this wouldn't be a problem if people talked to each other on the water insted of running to the cops like a little kid on the playground not getting his way.

All you "I don't want to hear your music" types might sing a different tune if the law in question was something like "no boat wake shall be more than 4 inches high while travelling 20 miles per hour or below". You embrace a law that does not affect you, but encroaches on the freedoms of the greater population. I'm going to guess that none of you have a problem with other peoples' music when it's something that you like/approve of/don't hate/bless/etc.

You may want to think about embracing something that is not so great for the public in general (you included)..

Im with Robb on this one. I love to listen to my tunes while riding. If other boats do not likeit then they can stop sitting and hanging out in the smoothest water on the lake. We don't crank the music while just hanging out either. Other boats don't like the loud music, and I don't like their big old power turns. Once in a while I will turn up the volume and put on some raunchy music in order to drive away boats that are just hanging out and keep being in the way of the best riding water on the lake. They should know better and I just help them learn without telling them.

I'll agree with Grant on this one. It definitely depends on your situation. On the lake I use, there is no place that you can go and get away from people. There is always going to be a house close by, or another boat using the area.

I'm not saying you can't play the tunes and have your base turned up, but just be aware of others. There is a big difference is playing you music loud enough to rock your own boat, and blaring it so loud that everyone within 2 miles can hear you. Especially when just chilling out. You are less than 10' from the speakers, it doesn't need to be cranked up to 9 to hear it well .

You may call these laws silly, but they are only being created because people are out there being idiots like this.

I agree with Brian. It all depends on the situation. If I'm chilling on the beach with no one around, I can play. OTOH, if I'm doing same said chilling and we're being quiet, there's no good reason for someone to beach themselves 10 feet away and start blasting.

What a great law! It's about time they cut down on the loud music. What's the point anyway.

I agree with BrianS, good work.

Wow, Andrew, you're so smart! Good idea.

What about the guys with the big checkmates and fountains with twin 454's? They are alot louder than my two 6 1/2" speakers on my tower. If you are blasting gangster rap where every other word is the f-word you are going to tick people off. Keep the music fairly clean and keep moving.

We had some red neck with one of those banana boats with the V8 and straight pipes out the back. You could honestly hear it in the house with the windows closed and have enough time to walk down to the dock and see it go by. We live behind a couple of islands that keep the main traffic away. So it passed by about 1/2 mile away. The guy would throttle it up and the windows would shake. I can only assume that is what a NASCAR race sounds like, just with 42 other cars and a little closer. It was honestly the loudest boat I have ever heard, and that includes all those fountain style boats.

The funny thing was the boat really wasn't all that fast. I would be shocked if he was going 50 mph. It just made a lot of noise and turned a lot of heads which is exactly what he was looking for.

I agree with Matt. I've got little kids on my boat. It's not the loud that gets me (I would if the wife and kids could handle it), it's the content. If people don't care about offending others, then the cops are the only thing they'll listen to. If we're considerate of others, just asking will probably work.

I know of a few lakes where the noise ordinaces that were passed for car stereos in that area are simply being applied to the water. I know of two people who were ticketed after the officer explained that if the stereo can be heard more than 50 ft away, it is a violation. Both took it to court and both lost based on existing ordinances.

I generally stay out of these kind of discussions as they benefit no one, but some of the attitudes portrayed here are pretty amazing. The idea that you have some sort of a right to a piece of water because it is smooth or you got there first is doing nothing for wakeboarders and their reputations (obviously these reputations are well deserved in many cases). If everyone would show some basic common sense and simple courtesy, the efforts of many other groups to have wakeboard boats and riders regulated would not be necessary. Of course, this idea will be lost on the people that need to embrace it the most.

That's what great about the Delta... nothing around!

Talking about "Tooting, blowing or sounding any siren, horn, signal or noise-making device"

http://homepage.mac.com/howheels/rubpics/woowoo.wmv

then go here:

http://lisupras.com/wooo.html

Yeah Andrew there should be a law against people chillin' in their boat in smooth water being in your way. They should know better?!? Gimme a break. Oh, I'm sorry, are they trespassing on your private lake? If you move your path over 100 ft they won't be in your way anymore. It only takes a handful of people like you to give us a bad reputation with the general public.

It's very very rare that another boater or lakefront homeowner want's to listen to somebody else's music.

DC - that is funny stuff. Nice driving in the end. Tried to peel out, almost wreck into the parked cars on the left, finally get the car into their lane, only to blow through a stop sign. Classic moronic behavior.

"Dat's only in da mornin' - you 'ppose to be up cookin' breakfast for somebody and so, that's like an alarm clock - woo woo." Like the pipes turn themselves off after 10am. Classic.

Rob. For one, the lake is semi private and yes just sitting around in the smooth water is unacceptable on the lake. There are very few spots on the lake where the water remains smooth for wakeboarding and waterskiing. These areas are known by most everyone as the areas to ski and board. The lake has plenty of room to just hang out, and not much room to get descent water. In the smooth parts of the lake we are not able to move over 100 feet to the left or right due to a dam wall or the natural shore line. Our lake is 80% wakebaorders and out of those 80%, 50% obey the unspoken rules of the lake. The other 30% are learning. The people in the go fast boats and the large cruisers are the ones making most of the power turns and hanging out in the wrong spot. It does not take many of these people to ruin the entire water on a small lake. We have never heard one complaint about the music volume either. As soon as our rider falls, we turn it off or down to a volume so we can hear the rider talking to us. We also have no lakefront homeowners who can complain. Last, the lake surface is 90% great space for hanging out and about 10% good water to board/ski. To me it is just common sense where to sit and hang out.

Looks like someone skipped breakfast that morning!!!

I run loud in my boat a lot of the time, but I surely don't press it upon others. I can't see this law holding when a majority of the time the sounds/music of the boat will be gone in a few moments or less than one minute. We don't tend to stay in the same place for a long period of time while boarding, so just like a Harley going by, it is gone soon.

KG

To play devil's advocte for a moment:

The wake from the power turns, tubers and cruisers will be gone in a minute...just like Kevin's music...so why stop doing it when a wakeboarder is around???

"I run loud in my boat a lot of the time, but I surely don't press it upon others" ummmmm...do you honestly think that is true??

Like I Said There a time and place for Everything Knowing when and where is another thing? I think everyone here has good comon sence, and Uses good jugment on when and where to blast there Tunes. The Question of the Day is how do we educate the the people who have no Idea about this type of thing. Im sertanly not going to tell some one to turn off there tunes Ill just go away, Shawn has some good point's. quote " If everyone would show some basic common sense and simple courtesy, the efforts of many other groups to have wakeboard boats and riders regulated would not be necessary. Good Point. The only problem is It's not alway's black or white where it's ok to "Blast or Not to Blast" Like you know its bad to throw wakes in 5 mph zone. It's not like there is Quite zones Marked out on the lake where people know to keep it down
Some say keep it down when your around other boats and others say lets tie up and Blast. Who is right who is wrong? I would like to Hear some Ideas from people what they would consider Good & Bad. We all know the Dock and around Houses would not be the best place but where else?

Party Cove - Loud.
Gas Dock - Not Loud.
Works for me...

Easy shawn...and Yes Shawn I do. We only have the stereo up when a boarder is out there. when they fall, MUTE!!! when they get back up, stereo up. We don't play loud at the beach, unless we are there with friends, alone or by request of the ppl at the beach for a demo! I'm not the person to make an example of, I was simply offering a different perspective.

(final response to this thread, like you said, it tends to go no-where)

KG

Hey Andrew, not sure what "semi-private" means, but if your lake has rules about not sitting around in smooth water then that's different. I completely understand in that situation. If you'd said that in your original post I wouldn't have responded like that. I run into the same type of thing on my lake. We have a slalom course out there, and sometimes you'll find some a-hole sitting right in the middle of it when there's 200 other acres they could sit. That falls under the "if everybody had common sense" thing. Yes, they have a right to sit there, but be a pal and leave that one little spot for the skiers, y'know? A couple times I've gone over and asked them to move and they have.
BTW, I love your plate and "favorite rider" response in your profile.

As far as the music law opinion goes, I'm thinking of my lake (200 acres), where there are year-round houses and summer camps all along the perimiter. If a rider were listening to a stereo loud enough for him to hear it, everyone on the lake would hear it. I think that would be very rude, and so far I've never heard anyone cranking the tunes out on the lake and I hope it stays that way. Of course, on a bigger lake, where houses look like dots, your music isn't going to get to them (unless you're the only boat out there), so what's the harm? I guess if I had to make a law about it, I'd make it a certain distance from shore where there are houses in view.

Noise ordinance would then also apply to loud boat engines not just music. Are you going to ticket go fast boats and i think most ib/v-drives are louder then my I/O....dont you go offendin me with your boat engine now

I have a 351 with the old style dual exhaust with "mufflers" that don't really muffle anything, and I can't hear it when I'm being towed unless I turn my head just right, so music loud enough to hear while riding would have to be quite a bit louder than my exhaust. But if it was all or nothing, I'd put up with your music because there's no sweeter music to my ears than the sound of a healthy barely muffled V8.

It all boils down to this- if a law gets passed (ANY law), some people will be for it and some will think it sucks. This thread could go on and on forever and not go anywhere. Poor Scottay, 27 posts and not one legal opinion! Just opinions...

I'm with Kevin- last post on this one... see you on another thread!

I don't have anything against loud music and I have tower speakers on my boat. And I wan't trying to make an example of anyone. I was only offering a slightly different perspective. For every different type of boat you see on the lake, the people on it are out there for different reasons. Anyone who has not tried to listen to music while riding may not appreciate how loud it needs to be to hear it. Many of the people I've talked with assumed that if you can hear it 100 yards away sitting quietly in a boat, you don't need it that loud for the rider to hear.

By taking that extra step to be polite and courteous (with music, wakes, etc), hopefully other non-wakeboarding boat owners will return the favor and preserve good water and stay out of the calm coves. I know it has worked pretty well for us (with some exceptions, but the world isn't a perfect place).

Another way to look at it as most lakes exceed their quota for arseholes. Hopefully by making an effort to be nice, you can prevent someone from getting a chip on their shoulder towards wakeboarders and becoming an arsehole.

"Be nice on the lake to help reduce your unwanted arsehole population. Your fellow riders will thank you for it"

Overly optimistic, I know.....but it can't hurt.

There's a law in either GA or SC(I forget which I was looking at when I saw it) stating that if your music can be heard outside of the boat, it's in violation of noise ordinances... haha, can you imagine if they enforced that? hell I can hear people across the cove whispering in their boat. I've got a loud stereo in my boat and so do a few of the other boats in my cove... we love to blast it loud as we can while riding and the only time people talk about it is when they're telling us to play their favorites. Then again we dont blast it after the sun goes down and we rarely play obscene music for long periods of time. My rule is, if my parents wouldn't approve, neither would my neighbors.

Someone should just come out with wireless, waterproof, floating headphones. Even if they cost like $200 or something, imagine all the money you'd still save on tower speakers and amps. They could serve as eardrum protection on a fall too.