I posted this today on the Free Lance-Star blog that I write but thought it was worth repeating here:

On of the words often used to describe music (and I use that
word advisedly) is “throbbing”. Spend a few minutes almost any afternoon
sitting at an outside table at one of our downtown venues and you’ll
know that means vibrating metal parts on passing cars that must have sound equipment
in the trunk equal to that found at almost any rock concert. Is it your imagination
or are those side windows really moving in synch to the base line of the
recording? Heck, just look at the driver of the car…the sound is so loud it has
somehow turned their ball caps around 45 degrees.

Sometimes you can even make out the profanity in some of the
cuts, words that sound as if they were recorded in a military barracks. If a
person stood on a street corner with a megaphone and spewed that kind of
profanity they would be shut down by the police in short order but put that
same person in a car and they are somehow immune.

All will be well shortly though because shortly you won’t
hear that music at all. Either you will have gone deaf or the straight piped
Harley’s will come through and treat you to their wrist twisting, ear splitting
“look at me, I’ve got a Harley” antics. If you or I drove our 4 wheeled vehicle
up

Princess Anne Street

or down

Caroline Street

making that kind of noise, we would most likely be up close and personal with
the police in short order.

Basta! No mas! Enough! We have a noise ordinance in the
Burg. Why won’t the police make even a token effort to enforce it?   I’ve
asked you that question; now, you should ask your city council representative
the same thing.

Who’s going to enjoy a well planned and ecologically focused
river front if it sounds like pit row at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?  Can you conceive of this kind of mess going on
in Old Town Alexandria?

Where are the downtown merchants in all this? Maybe they
have spoken up and it’s just that no one can hear them.