Lancaster City's vehicular noise — from both engines and music — is extreme enough to warrant public health concern. The volume exceeds that of much larger cities, meaningfully reducing quality of life and clearly violating the noise ordinance already in place. As residents, we call for renewed enforcement of common-sense limits on such noise — including, should the ordinance as written prove inadequate, policy reform. 

We can't simply skip this conversation to avoid cultural and socio-economic friction. There are freedoms we abdicate across all such lines to safeguard communal wellbeing, and wall-penetrating, stylistic volume should be an uncontroversial mainstay of that list. All city dwellers accept the noise that concentrated populations entail, but all cities concerned with remaining worthwhile places to live apply sensible limits to that noise — and we're clocking airport decibels in Penn Square. Bigger cities are quieter because they choose to be on a municipal level, disconnecting population growth from noise with the same kind of policy interventions that keep the air clean. (This comparison isn't hyperbole, but literal: the World Health Organization named noise "the second biggest environmental factor causing health problems" behind air pollution (New York Times, 2011.))

This petition stops short of endorsing any particular enforcement methods, the selection and implementation of which we should navigate as a community, but condemns without equivocation any that would target or endanger marginalized people. We must not weaponize the police; the offense is serious but not worth lives. There are numerous options in the municipal toolkit that skip physical encounters altogether, and an effective, fair, and safe approach may require several. This will not be free, but its costs should not be onerous, and existing budgets should accomodate the priority.

Let's proceed with equal parts reason and compassion to support our city's quality of life.