Tampa police lower the boom on loud car stereos

TAMPA — Owners of boom cars may want to turn the volume knob a little to the left.

Tampa police are cracking down on vehicles that blast music at ear-shattering levels.

In the first eight months of 2009, the department issued 1,348 tickets to drivers whose music can be heard more than 25 feet away, police Maj. Marc Hamlin told the City Council on Thursday.

That compares to 836 citations written during the same time last year. Each citation comes with a $101 fine.

The uptick in enforcement came after East Tampa residents complained about excessive noise from cars equipped with huge bass amplifiers.

In June, residents presented a petition signed by more than 400 people supporting a program that would let residents give police the license plate numbers of cars playing loud music. But the council instead voted to ask police Chief Steve Hogue to start cracking down.

"We understand the community's concern," Hamlin said. "It hasn't fallen on deaf ears."

But the tickets still aren't enough for Clay Daniels.

The East Tampa resident wants the city to adopt a "soft letter" program similar to ones in St. Petersburg, Clearwater and Largo that let residents call police with tag numbers of loud cars. Car owners then get a letter from the city warning that they are violating the noise ordinance.

"It's like a crack cocaine epidemic," Daniels said. "They come down and play their music loud. It's out of control."

Hamlin, though, said the police would rather write tickets for the violations.

City Council member Linda Saul-Sena said her office could take on the task of sending out the letters if the Police Department didn't want to do it.

"It can only help but re­inforce the other things that you're doing," she said. "There obviously is a problem as identified by all the citations you've written."

But city attorney Chip Fletcher said that it's difficult to know whether complaints about loud cars are legitimate. Officers write tickets only if they witness the violation.

Other council members agreed that citations are better than letters, with John Dingfelder noting that most people would throw the letter away without a second thought.

"What they would care about is getting a ticket," he said.

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3401.