It is spring once again and, with the chirping of the birds and sounds of children playing, come the annoying bellows of the ice cream trucks as they casually roll, very slowly, through the neighborhood. They start in the morning and go well into dusk, every day, all day.
Didn't Chattanooga pass a noise ordinance not too long ago? How come someone can get a ticket for playing personal music too loud, yet these ice cream trucks are "aloud" to blare that annoying tinkerbell music up and down the street all day?
They wake my baby from his nap, make the dog howl, and prompt the kids in my yard to start begging for money. Sometimes, you will even see trucks from two different companies trying to beat each other to certain parts of the neighborhood, which is even twice as annoying.
It is obvious these trucks are breaking the law, as I can hear them for about 10 minutes AFTER they leave my street. If the city of Chattanooga is going to allow them to break the law at will, they should at least grant the residents reprieve by limiting the number of times the truck can go down any one street in a day, making them turn their music down or off when they stop, and having them turn it down - PERIOD.
Another point is that if the trucks would also SLOW DOWN, they wouldn't have to have their music turned up so loud that you can hear it a block before it gets there.
I'd be interested to know if there is anything residents can do to take back their neighborhoods from these unwarranted annoyances.
Krystal Roth
krystalroth2@comcast.net
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I am saddened to hear that someone resents another person the right to make an honest, decent living because "they" don't like the music coming from their trucks.
There are so many people without work these days and to think someone begrudges work to others is amazing to me. The music has a purpose and that is to tell the children something they like is available. When I was a child I loved to hear the music whether I purchased the product or not.
I feel everyone has the right to make his/her own honest living the way they see fit and to stop this practice would be a sad situation and a loss of some fond memories for the children and adults.
This is a hard job regardless of how it looks and my hat goes off to you that perform these honest jobs.
Bettye W. Clark
Rossville
Clarkgb1@aol.com
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While we're ridding ourselves of loud annoying noises, I vote we do away with children happily, but loudly, riding their bikes up and down the streets gleefully laughing and enjoying themselves. No one should be able to speak above a whisper. No loud coughing, sneezing and nose blowing in public.
I think the original mailer was attempting to show how ridiculous and oppressive noise ordinance and other laws can be. How easy it is for otherwise upstanding citizens to allow themselves to slip into fascism. Surely, in the beginning, good citizens of Germany never would have fathomed what Hitler really had in mind.
Bernadine Colters
thedream.catcher@hotmail.com
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How ridiculous to say it's depriving someone of making an honest living.
If it's okay to blare that music then what about someone selling pirated music blasting hard rock around a neighborhood?
I think noise is noise and if it pertains to one it should the other.
Charles Kessel
chask100@earthlink.net
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Sounds like Krystal's mommy didn't give her ice cream money when she was a kid.
Ice cream trucks are a part of the childhood experience; at least for those of us who actually got ice cream from them. I went so far recently as to download my favorite ice cream truck tune off the Internet and put it on my iPod.
Lighten up lady.
Ike Conn
ikeconn@yahoo.com
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Annoying? I can't for the life of me understand why this would bother a person who at one time surely must have been a kid.
Hearing the sound of the truck means several things to me, none of them annoying at all. The sound of that music means that a person is making an honest effort to stay off the welfare roles. They are also contributing to the tax base instead of taking from it.
It means that there are children in that neighborhood. It means that these children are outside, listening for that happy sound instead of lying on the couch playing video games. It means these children will have at least one happy moment that day.
It means that the trucks owner feels safe enough to drive up and down your street without being shot, robbed, or blown to bits by a car bomb by some terrorist.
It means this is America. At least the ice cream man goes home at dusk and doesn't return until daylight. Unlike the disrespectful, brainless knuckleheads who blast us with their booming garbage sounds at all hours of the night. These people are the ones that are annoying.
As Norton would say, "Sheeesh."
Fred Roper
froper@gmail.com