City of Noises

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 627, 2 April 1929, Page 8

City of Noises

By-Law Threatens Rowdy Music Boxes A CITY BY-LAW to silence the melodies which boom from musical instruments in Auckland business areas is being talked of. Several music-shop proprietors promise open defiance to this proposed encroachment on private rights, but others, taking what they term the long view, are prepared to suppress the music if it is proved to be a public nuisance.

'J'HE difficulty of connected conversation in Queen Street is the visitor’s first impression of Auckland. On the one hand he hears the incessant roar of rushing tramcars and the general traffic din radiated from the street centre; on the other hand, his ears are filled by the jazziest and craziest musical hits, reproduced at high velocity to penetrate the competitive sounds. But the impression is a

fleeting one. Upstairs in suites of offices with street frontages, typistes, clerks, business managers, are trying to work. Their impression is lasting, for they are there all day and every day. Into this orgy of noise the City Council now steps with delicate tread, and suggests the following by-law to deal with the gramophone nuisance in the business area:— ‘‘No person shall, in any premises adjoining or near any street, footpath or public place, by playing any gramophone or musical instrument, or operating any wireless or other device, or by making any other noise, cause a nuisance or annoyance to persons in or on such street, footpath or public place.” Although the problem has become a world-wide one, and is not confined to this city of noises—Auckland —the city solicitor recognises the difficulties of dealing with It locally. The task, he said in his report to the council, was to frame a by-law which would prevent this form of annoyance to passers-by in the streets without Interfering unduly with the legitimate

use of business premises by shopkeepers. Iu Auckland, however, the original complaint was laid by the occupier of premises close to a gramophone shop, who says he and his staff were nigh distracted by the continuous music. Proprietors of shops which now announce the latest mechanical music promise to defy the enactment of this by-law, which they say will halve their business by removing front door panatropes and radio appliances. “They cannot stop my playing a gramophone inside my shop door,” one man challenged, “and as this is my best selling medium, they will have to prosecute me before I will remove it.” “QUITE USED TO IT" “The city trams create such a din that we have to keep the volume up to its full extent,” another declared, when a modification in tone was suggested. A man who virtually lives his business life among the machines says he has become immune to their noisy strains in much the same manner as a man becomes accustomed to traffic and other sounds outside his bedroom at nights. “I never hear it,” he confided, “and I think most of the people in the vicinity feel the same after they have been here for a while.” The proprietor of one big music house agreed with the city authorities that the problem had become so widespread that it was now approaching the state of a public nuisance. It was certainly a fine selling medium, he said, but he was willing to take the long view, and if it were proved that nuisance were created by frontdoor demonstrations, he would agree to suppress them. “You see, Auckland has really only just started this front-door music,” he explained. “On every hand restaurants and other business houses are installing machines, and there is no indication where it will stop. Will we shortly be attracted to green groceries by cleverly-contrived gramophone records telling us to ‘eat more vegetables’ or something else?’

PROBLEM REGARDED SERIOUSLY “Many people accept this problem lightly, but some of the greatest business brains in the world are studying it with serious attention in an effort to solve it to the public advantage without delivering a darn aging blow to legitimate trading.” This assertion is substantiated by the recent efforts of the “London Daily Mail,” in conjunction with a noted gramophone company, to analyse street noises by recording them electrically and submitting them to the Home Secretary for analysis. The difficulty in striking the happymedium in obedience of the law of noises generally was illustrated in Auckland recently, when a man who was fined for blowing his motor-horn too vociferou \y at a corner was found ,to have been fined previously for not having blown his horn at a corner! An interesting legal battle is predicted by business firms if the projected city by-law is enacted suppressing gramophone music in shop-fronts.