Council member Marian Miller said the amendment to the City of Laurens\u2019 noise ordinance is \u201cnothing new\u201d.<\/p>\n
The first reading of ordinance 26-07-01 was passed unanimously Tuesday evening. It addresses excessive motor vehicle noise, modified exhaust systems, nuisance exhaust emissions and businesses that install or create unlawful vehicle modifications.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we have to concern ourselves with is the quality of life in the city. There has been a nuisance ordinance in place since the city was founded. Unfortunately, because of the time the last ordinance was written it was not as clear as it needed to be,\u201d Mayor Nathan Senn said. \u201cThis makes absolutely clear those things we need to address.\u201d<\/p>\n
The amended ordinance make it unlawful to operate vehicles equipped with muffler cutouts, straight pipes, deleted mufflers and other modifications.<\/p>\n
Sound meters and emissions testing is not required, however, violations could be measured through citizen complaint, videos and officer observations.<\/p>\n
The second ordinance passed unanimously amends regulations governing animals, livestock, poultry, backyard hens, animal enclosures and animal-related nuisances.<\/p>\n
Senn said the ordinance is more about sanitary conditions and if the animals are causing a nuisance to neighbors than it is about having chickens in the backyard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up on a farm about three miles outside of town. My parents at this moment have chickens running around their yard. When I lived in the city of Charleston, I had my own chickens in the back yard. I am very pro chicken,\u201d Senn said. \u201c[In the previous ordinance] there was only one animal you could not have and that is swine. You couldn\u2019t operate a commercial farm in the city, there were regulations concerning that but with the lack of detail about what happens to animals and how they\u2019re kept, we\u2019re seeing some people unfortunately not care for animals as they should.\u201d<\/p>\n
Up to six hens are approved for backyards within city limits. Roosters are still prohibited as are commercial farms.<\/p>\n
\u201cSimilar to the noise ordinance, this is nothing new. We\u2019re just doing our best taking care to give liberty to individual property owners versus creating a situation where we have animal related nuisances,\u201d Senn said.<\/p>\n
Miller agreed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to detour you, we just don\u2019t want animals to interfere on your neighbors or your neighborhood. Then it becomes a problem,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n
Both proposals are part of a larger effort to modernize city ordinances addressing neighborhood quality of life, public safety and nuisance complaints.<\/p>\n
The two ordinances will come before the council for a second reading before becoming official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Council member Marian Miller said the amendment to the City of Laurens\u2019 noise ordinance is \u201cnothing new\u201d. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84617,139,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-249081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-goclinton","tag-news","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}