Bellflower : Loud Car Stereos to Be Cited

The Bellflower City Council wants the Sheriff’s Department to clamp down on drivers who play their automobile stereos so loud that fellow motorists can feel the reverberations from the music when parked alongside.

The council is considering an ordinance that would toughen existing state law by specifying that any motorist playing music heard outside his car would be subject to citation. Meanwhile, the council has directed deputies to stop drivers of cars that play loud music and cite them under a 1978 state law that says, “No driver of a vehicle shall operate . . . any radio system intended to make sound audible outside the vehicle . . . “

But City Atty. Maurice F. O’Shea, in a staff report, said that enforcement of any such anti-noise law would be almost unenforceable. “One of the problems . . . is enforcement,” O’Shea wrote.

Councilman Randy Bomgaars, who initiated the staff report, complained that the music is obnoxious and could pose a safety hazard.