Proposed Law Seeks to Tame Gatherings of ‘Party Animals’

“Party animals, beware!” warned Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo, who proposed a law Wednesday allowing the city to bill the hosts of loud and unruly gatherings if police must respond more than once to quell disturbances.

Under the ordinance, party-givers would first receive a warning if police consider the festivities noisy. If police must return a second time and find the party back in full swing, the host will be sent a bill for the police costs.

Woo left the amount of the “loud party service fee” to be worked out by the City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley, whose approval are required for it to become law. A number of other Southern California cities that have enacted similar ordinances charge up to $500 when police must respond a second time to a loud party.

Worst Offenders

The ordinance would apply only to parties the police determine to be among the worst offenders, Woo said. “These aren’t your average lively get-togethers,” he said. “These are the kinds of parties that go on all night and sometimes erupt in violence. Many of them are ‘flyer parties,’ where teen-agers have papered an area with flyers announcing a party when their parents are away.”

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates supports the proposed law because it would reduce the amount of time officers spend responding to complaints about loud parties, said a Police Department spokesman. Complaints about loud parties account for up to 20% of calls on some nights, especially weekends, the spokesman said.

Officers can now arrest revelers for disturbing the peace, a misdemeanor punishable by a maximum $1,000 fine and six months in jail. “When you have that, you pit neighbor against neighbor, and many people don’t want to go to court and testify against a neighbor,” said Capt. Noel Cunningham, commanding officer of the Police Department’s Northeast Division.

‘Raucous All-Nighter’

Woo compared enforcement of the proposed law to the way the city bills security system owners for unnecessary police trips. Those responsible should pay the costs, he said.

Woo said he decided to propose the law after residents in his Studio City district complained to him about suffering through a “raucous all-nighter.”

“We hope this will be a deterrent for hosts, who will actually have to pay for the police time they’re wasting, as well as facing arrest and fines for breaking existing noise ordinances,” Woo said at a City Hall press conference. “Police in other cities say once hosts realize how much their party could cost them, things quiet down quite a bit.”

Woo’s proposal calls for drafting an ordinance patterned after similar laws in Fullerton and Palos Verdes Estates.

Host Given a Bill

In Palos Verdes Estates, police issue a warning the first time they are summoned to a loud party. The second time, they not only break up the party but present a bill to the host. Hosts are charged $1.25 a minute for police time, and the clock runs from the time the first call comes in to the station until the final report is written.

Police Lt. Ed Jaakola of Palos Verdes Estates could not say how many bills have been sent out since the law went into effect in February. But, he said, the law has cut in half the number of times police have had to go back to a party.