THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 26, 1995 TAG: 9507260372
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Short : 32 lines
How much noise annoys a ``reasonably prudent person?''
A lot more, says a judge, than the sound of weekend jazz echoing across the waters around Mulligan's downtown riverfront restaurant.
District Judge James Carlton Cole decided this week that the dance music at the restaurant owned by James Nye didn't violate the city's anti-noise ordinance.
Cole threw out two police citations against Nye after neighbors complained that Nye's band was noisy to the point of being noisome.
The judge decided the local noise law was unconstitutional because it defined too much public noise as enough to offend both reasonable and unreasonable listeners.
That was more noise than was likely to come out of Mulligan's, Cole suggested.
The judge threw out the charges against Nye after Nye's attorney reviewed the definitions of public uproar as contained in existing city ordinances.
Cole agreed that the Elizabeth City law was loose enough to be unconstitutional in the way it described a ``reasonably prudent person'' with an attitude about noise. by CNB