A city in Northwest Arkansas unanimously passed a noise ordinance on Monday after neighbors complained about loud music coming from a local church.
Farmington Mayor Ernie Penn said people in a neighborhood complained that the music from nearby Brand New Church, located in a commercial area, was too loud.
“Yes, I could hear a bass and I could hear a drum,” he said. “What’s offensive to me and what’s offensive to that neighbor probably are two different things. But everything had to be objective.”
The Washington County Enterprise-Leader reported the church’s senior pastor, Shannon O’Dell, was cited two consecutive Sundays, one in May and one in June, with disorderly conduct, a Class C misdemeanor, because the city didn’t have a noise ordinance at the time.
The residents who filed the complaints urged the city to look into getting a noise ordinance, prompting the city attorney and prosecutor to draft the rule up, Penn said.
The ordinance specifies what decibels are allowed in residential, commercial and industrial areas at various periods of the day.
“Now we have a document, instead of it being subjective,” he said.
The Farmington City Council voted 8-0 to approve the ordinance at the Monday evening meeting, officials said.
According to Penn, a representative from both the church and neighborhood attended and expressed their support for the rule.
The mayor said he hopes having an ordinance with explicit noise restrictions will allow the city to quickly resolve similar issues in the future. With the new rule in place, he said police can use a meter to accurately determine noise levels and, in the case of some complaints, say, “Hey, they’re in compliance and you have to live with it.”