Sarasota News Leader

05/30/2014

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The motions contend that "sound can be safely measured from the top of the embankment on the north side of Bob's property between the source of the music and the neighbors' property." Therefore, because the alleged violation "was based on a measurement from an invalid loca- tion [it] should be dismissed." The motions also argue that restaurant staff is unable to monitor compliance on the north side of the creek because the neighbors have declined "Bob's request to enter upon [their] property to measure the sound from where Law Enforcement is taking its measure- ments." The motions add that under the new ordinance, "persons of common intelligence have to guess at whether the music on Bob's side of the Creek is in violation on the neigh- bors' side of the Creek." Yet another defense in the motions is that the revised ordinance's provisions "are so severe that [they leave] the musicians at Bob's with no adequate means of expression of music as … is customarily known … at Bob's." The motions also say that the ordinance is so restrictive that "it regulates sound in a way that substantially limits more speech than is necessary to achieve the goal of protecting citizens from excessive noise" and therefore constitutes a violation of the First Amendment. STATE RESPONSE On May 27, Assistant Sarasota County Attorney David Pearce filed a notice with the 12th Circuit Court saying he would be serv- ing as co-counsel on a limited basis for the Cussans case. Assistant State Attorney Angeline Attila is handling the case for the state. Contacted on May 28, she referred the News Leader to Pearce. Pearce also has been representing the county in Code Enforcement Special Magistrate hear- ings as Bob's Boathouse has worked to obtain its Certificate of Occupancy. (See the related story in this issue.) On May 27, Pearce filed a response to the Motion to Dismiss in the Cussans' case, writ- ing that the revised Air and Sound Pollution Ordinance "does not regulate the content of speech, and only places limitations on time, place, and manner of the speech. It achieves its regulation through narrowly tai- lored provisions designed to achieve its end of prohibiting unreasonable sound through objective standards. Finally, it properly limits the discretion of the person taking measure- ments of decibel levels." On May 16, he filed a motion with the same points in the Bogert case. Pearce further asserts in his motions that the ordinance "avoids the language problems found in other ordinances struck down by the [Florida] Second District Court of Appeal over the past few decades." He adds, "The ordinance goes no further than necessary to protect Sarasota County's significant governmental interest in protect- ing residential communities from disruptive noise." He further points out that "Many local governments use the receiving property boundary as the location where sound mea- surements are taken …." % Sarasota News Leader May 30, 2014 Page 47

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