Humboldt, Saskatchewan — The City of Humboldt has a new noise bylaw in the making, which if approved would require light vehicles to operate under a noise limit of 96 decibels.
The current bylaw, which was drafted more than 35 years ago, mainly uses personal perception to gauge how loud a vehicle is. While, the new one, relies on something a little less subjectives: decibels.
Not having a concrete, measurable way to access sound, has caused some issues, in terms of enforcing it.
“Our old bylaw was out of date, it was 1985. So it has been a while since we looked at it, it’s been amended a couple of times but for the most part it’s been the same bylaw for a number of years,” Mike Kwasnica, Humboldt’s director of protective services told the Toronto Star.“What we found is that it’s not very specific to what a loud noise was, what are the hours of operation that you’re allowed to make little loud noises in other times.”
Under the draft, the fines for breaking the bylaw will remain the same as he previous one: $150 for first offense, $250 for the second, and the third breach is minimum $500 up to $2,000.
The new bylaw will be proposed at city council’s August meeting.
