Man Barred From Vigilante Acts : Courts: A judge orders him to stop lobbing objects at a Ventura bottling plant that he says is too noisy at night.

Asoft-drink bottling company in Ventura won a temporary restraining order Friday against a neighbor who protested noise from the bottling plant by displaying protest signs and lobbing beer bottles, rocks and fruit at the facility.

Superior Court Judge Barbara A. Lane granted the request by the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Co. of Ventura to restrain Ed Brown from what he readily conceded in court was a vigilante campaign to draw attention to a noisy neighbor.

But Lane stopped short of ordering Brown to stop posting hand-lettered signs denouncing the company in colorful, if not always grammatical, language. The judge ruled only that Brown could not post the signs on public property or on the grounds of the bottling plant.

Brown had contended that his campaign of harassment was intended to put the bottling company on notice about what he says are irritating and stressful nighttime noises emanating from the plant just north of the Ventura city limits on North Ventura Avenue.

But Pepsi officials say they have done everything they can to respond to neighbors’ complaints about nighttime noise from forklifts, idling trucks and honking horns, and that Brown has chosen vandalism over peaceful negotiation.

The plant, which first received a permit in 1970 before environmental reviews were required, produces up to 20,000 cases of Pepsi a day.

Contending that Brown’s actions have placed their employees in jeopardy, attorneys for the bottling company asked the court to force Brown to halt his campaign of harassment. The judge ruled that Brown must refrain from pelting the Pepsi plant with beer bottles and other objects.

In an interview before the ruling, Brown said he would abide by a restraining order to stop hurling bottles at the plant. He said he intended to take a more conventional approach to voicing his objections by circulating a petition among his neighbors and working with public officials.

Brown, who performs odd jobs and has lived with his elderly parents across the street from the plant for 10 years, said his actions were prompted by an increase in nighttime activity at the plant.

“The noise got so bad my nerves were getting shot,” Brown said. “I used to like Pepsi until the night shift started.”

Beginning last year, Brown posted hand-drawn signs to needle the bottling company. His first sign read: “No More Night Shift--Let Me Sleep.”

As the nightly clatter continued, his frustration built, and within months Brown displayed a sign, “Pepsi Sucs”, while another one included a vulgar slogan written in what Brown said was the Choctaw Indian language.

Officials with Lindsey Bottling Co., the bottling plant’s parent firm, dispute Brown’s contention that they added a night shift. “We always have had a night loading shift,” said Mike Rose, a shift manager.

Rose said the company has acted in good faith in an effort to minimize noise levels. “We’re trying to get along with everybody,” Rose said. “We’re not trying to provoke him.”

But other residents near the plant said that they share Brown’s annoyance over round-the-clock noise created by forklifts, delivery trucks and other activities at the bottling plant.

“When I saw his signs in the street, I felt at least I wasn’t the only one who was bothered,” said Jay Nelson, who lives next door to the bottling plant in the Magnolia Trailer Park.

Nelson said that his sleep is often disrupted by the sounds at the loading dock. “My temper got the better of me once or twice,” he said.

But he also pointed out that plant managers tried to help by building a barricade of stacked wooden pallets to help baffle sound, and moving some operations away from the trailer park.

Joan Moros, another resident of the trailer park, said nighttime noise from the plant has forced her to sleep in a different bedroom than her husband, Jim, who suffered a hearing loss in the Vietnam conflict.

“When they increased work at night last year, I moved into the other bedroom because of the noise,” Moros said. “The machinery is clinking, clinking, clinking, and the delivery trucks go beep, beep, beep when they back up.”

County planner Marcia Wakelee said that past complaints of neighbors were addressed when the county modified Pepsi’s permit in November to allow an expanded facility.

Conditions were added that require the loading door to remain closed at night, and limit loud talk, the playing of radios and other noise outside the facility at night, Wakelee said.

The absence of a county noise ordinance makes it more difficult for the neighbors to force concessions from the bottling plant, said Todd Collart, a county planner and Ventura councilman who has tried to mediate the dispute.

Without such an ordinance, noise levels are usually controlled by limiting business hours or work methods, or requiring sound containment walls as a condition of a use permit, Collart said.

Judge Lane scheduled a hearing for April 10 to determine whether the bottling plant can obtain a permanent injunction against Brown.