BEACH TOO LOUD
I was just trying to use Santa Cruz Main Beach on July 16 while a junior lifeguard camp was there. They had about 10 speakers generating extremely loud “music.” They were in front of the Boardwalk but I could hear it even at the Wharf, about 300 meters away, meaning that where the kids were gathered, the noise level was at least 100db and probably 120db. Sound pressure levels over 85db causes permanent hearing loss. 120db causes instant, irreversible hearing damage. None of those kids signed up for that, and neither did the people trying to use this public beach. I remember Bill Graham personally going around at his concerts, making parents who brought their kids to take them to the first aid shelter to get earplugs to put in their ears.
I tried to speak to a lifeguard and a fellow with a camp director jacket, who were talking at a truck near the tent from which the noise was generated. I said these kids didn’t sign up for this assault on their hearing and both told me I should use some other beach if it bothered me. I said I was only asking the sound be turned down a notch to 11, but they refused. I asked them their names and the guy in the junior lifeguard director jacket said, “My name is fuck you.” He was a fellow with a blond beard. The fellow in the lifeguard jacket refused to give me his name.
Of course, other people use the beaches rudely, with their speakers blanketing the beach. It is a public nuisance. There is a guy who pretends he is a DJ with loudspeakers at the Yacht Harbor beach. This has become endemic as speaker and amp technology has increased the sound levels.
I’m not against music. I go to hear loud music, even some of our local bands who clearly have lost their own hearing from playing so often and now play at ear-splitting volume. I wear earplugs at times, but the point is that I voluntarily go to those places. People using a public beach should not be subjected involuntarily to ear-damaging loud music. Really, the lifeguards ought to go up and down the beach and tell anyone producing sound at over 85db to turn it down. And as for local bands, really, they ought to carry a sound pressure meter since some have lost all sense of proportion. If the music is good, people will dance without it being ear-splitting. If they see people with earplugs, that’s a hint.
Mike Strimling | Santa Cruz
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