Noise violations a city, county problem, rarity on campus

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Noise violations are a bigger problem in the City of Mount Pleasant and Isabella County than on CMU’s campus.

Disturbing the peace or noise violations are extremely rare on campus because the residence halls often deal with those sort of issues themselves, said CMU Police Lt. Cameron Wassman.

“We have the ability under state law to issue citations, but our preferred situation is to speak with the (individual) and resolve the situation in other ways,” Wassman said. “The hall staff are the first people to get involved, and traditionally they take care of things in house.”

Most of the city’s violations occur at parties in the apartment complexes, said Jeff Browne, public information officer for the Mount Pleasant Police Department.

The number of violations for the past year has been consistent, Browne said.

From January 2010 to December 2010, there were 767 nuisance party/disturbing the peace complaints in the City of Mount Pleasant. For the first six months of this year, there were 263 complaints.

Seventy-eight people were cited last year for hosting or attending a nuisance party.

There are two violations usually cited in such instances: disturbing the peace and nuisance party. An individual can be cited for either hosting or attending a nuisance party, Browne said.

“(The City’s nuisance ordinance) covers everything from radios to animals to sirens,” Browne said.

The penalty for violating the City’s nuisance ordinance is a misdemeanor and penalties including fines of $500 or imprisonment up to 90 days, or both fines and imprisonment for each offense, as well as costs and/or probation, according to the City’s website.

Browne said weekends tend to be more problematic for nuisance calls, especially “larger” weekends that revolve around football games and other celebrations, such as the weekend before the start of fall semester, Homecoming and Western Weekend.

During the summer, the population is less concentrated, he said, but more people leave their windows open and engage in outdoor recreation.

“(It’s a) trade off during summer months,” he said.

Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski said he notices the same trend.

“With the nice weather in the spring and the summer, most of the people will be congregating outside once the nasty cold weather … decreases,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Department also deals mostly with noise violations in apartment complexes instead of private residences, but often takes no action beyond breaking up the party.

“If they’re halfway decent, typically, we don’t write any tickets except to those who refuse to leave,” Mioduszewski said.

In those situations, the department issues a disorderly person citation, which is a misdemeanor.

He said the noise problems are typically controlled by being more proactive in the form of increased visibility of officers.

Mioduszewski said noise violations are a priority, but it usually depends on what’s going on in responding to such calls.

“A traffic accident takes priority over a nuisance party,” he said. “We respond as soon as we can, but obviously more serious calls get priority.”