Sir
Open letter to the Endumeni Municipality:
1. We, hereby appeal to you, the municipal officials, to put measures in place to combat the daily mobile parties in Coronation Park, which have been the bane of residents’ lives for the last seven years, at least.
We had appealed to the municipality before, even when David Cebhukulu still occupied the chair.
2. This issue had merely been handed over to local law enforcement time and time again, and they had been largely incapable of dealing with it. We are sorry to say that the local police station is abysmally ignorant of regulations governing noise disturbance and noise nuisance. They have simply ignored the problem, and in more than one case have intimidated residents who complained about their lack of action. Every town councillor involved with Ward Four had also ignored it.
3. When Mr S Ngobese was our ward town councillor, he, however, came to our partial rescue by blocking off the largest part of Coronation Park with bollards. This prevented vehicle entrance to that part, but for reasons beyond our knowledge, he had been stopped from doing anything else. He also had signs erected on all sides of Coronation Park, spelling out the rules in all applicable languages, but to no avail. Even the local police ignore those signs. No other councillor had bothered to help us, and we cannot seem to evoke a response from our current councillor now.
4. The result of this has been that all the impromptu mobile street parties have been pushed into the only part of Coronation Park that is open to vehicular traffic, and that is the part bordered by Coronation and McKenzie streets. We are now requesting that this part be blocked off to vehicular traffic as well.
5. We are also requesting that the road entrance into the park, behind the taxi rank in McKenzie Street, also be blocked off, as the Donga bar and sports facility can also be reached from Victoria Street, or Coronation Street, for that matter. This point has been one of the main obstacles in reaching a solution for this problem.
6. We want to stress here that the daily taxi traffic is a small part of the problem. Many of the problem makers are from out of town, and it is more often than not, vehicles from outside Dundee that are the problem here. We would just like to have the red stripe in front of my house repainted as well. We see all the street painting has been done, but this red curb had not been repainted yet, and the front of my house, and yard, is now turning into a litter heap.
7. We also want to stress, sir, that it is of absolutely no use to contact the local police, as us residents are often verbally abused by police officers for racism and lack of knowledge as far as their “procedures” are concerned, especially after hours, when these officers almost seem to make up their own laws as far as noise nuisance is concerned. It is an even more futile exercise to ask party-goers to tone their excessive noise down, and any attempts thereto have almost ended in people getting hurt.
8. We have often been told, especially during the festive season, that noise nuisance is now legal, and police do not act against it anymore, as prosecutors throw these cases out. The same apparently applied for drinking in public. Local traffic officers also refuse to act, and their excuse is that our prosecutors have no idea what they are doing.
9. In closing, Sir, we wish to add that this situation almost again got out of hand today when another mobile party partially blocked Coronation Street, and local residents asked these people to desist. Somebody is going to get hurt here, or worse, even killed. The law determines two kinds of noise, namely noise disturbance – which is the party kind emanating from your neighbour’s house – and noise nuisance. We are almost positive that not a single police officer in Dundee will know this.
10. Noise nuisance is totally different. This kind of noise can include playing loud music or a musical instrument or operating a television set loudly, operating machinery or power tools that cause a noise nuisance, shouting and talking loudly, allowing an animal to become a noise nuisance, operating a vehicle that causes a noise nuisance and driving a vehicle on a public road in a manner that causes a noise nuisance. This noise is illegal at all times and is enforceable at any time of the day.
11. We are not complaining about our neighbours here, and these are not noise disturbances that should just be quietly tolerated. These actions are impacting on our right to enjoy our own lives in peace and quiet, and we would really like to see the municipality take some form of action against this.
Its been eight years of pleading and cajoling with indifferent municipal officials and totally uncaring law enforcement officers, and we are tired of this now. We will be sending this letter to any official who would care to read it, and any newspaper who cares to publish it. Enough is enough.
Johann and Michele Hamman
