Meeting on city’s new noise rules could be standing room onlly

City wants to limit noise from 10 p.m. – 10 a.m.

Could be a packed house for an upcoming hearing at La Crosse’s city hall.  

Proposed changes to the city’s noise rules have riled up some locals, who see the adjustments as an overreach.  

The new rules are meant to limit noise during nighttime hours – like music coming from bars – but those hours are defined as lasting from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. 

City council member David Krump is leading an effort to bring attention to the potential for damage to, especially, downtown businesses.  

In a posting online, Krump says, the “ordinance is off-base and dangerously loose in its legal ramifications.”  

The new noise ordinance also tackles any “yelling, shouting or hooting.”  

Those backing the ordinance call it a ‘small adjustment’ to noise rules. Many disagree, of course, including Chris Stopla, part owner of the Stein Haus downtown.

He says only a few people support the changes.

“This kind of mentality of trying to take all the options and mash them together, so only the one person that has the one idea gets to do what they want and the rest of us get to sit there and suffer,” Stopla said. “It’s silly.”

A city council committee considers the ordinance at the beginning of April.