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Police tell council Laramie’s muffler rule is more enforceable than decibel ordinance; equipment and wind limits hinder Chapter 8 use
Summary
Assistant Chief Tom Smith told the council Laramie’s technical decibel‑based noise ordinance (Chapter 8) is hard to apply in practice because it requires ANSI‑certified meters, calibrated operators, 25‑foot measurements and wind under 5 mph; the department primarily enforces a traffic‑code muffler rule.
Assistant Chief Tom Smith told the Laramie City Council on Nov. 25 that the city’s existing muffler provision in the traffic code is the department’s primary tool for addressing excessively loud vehicles because the city’s Chapter 8 decibel ordinance is difficult to use in routine enforcement.
Smith described the technical requirements for Chapter 8: measurements must be taken at 25 feet with ANSI‑standard sound meters operated by certified officers, and the ordinance’s text includes environmental constraints such as wind speeds under 5 miles per hour and limited allowable decibel increases in a 15‑minute window. Those requirements, Smith said, present practical obstacles to writing a citation the city can successfully prosecute in court.
By contrast, Smith said the traffic code muffler…
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