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Is your neighbor partying too loudly? LA City Council is proposing a fine
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Nov 29, 2017
Listen 6:11
Is your neighbor partying too loudly? LA City Council is proposing a fine
Perhaps this has happened to you: a neighbor throws a party and things just get way too loud, and go way too late.
The Hollywood sign in the Hollywood Hills.
The Hollywood sign in the Hollywood Hills.
(
Laura Riu Martín via Flickr Creative Commons
)

Perhaps this has happened to you: a neighbor throws a party and things just get way too loud, and go way too late.

Perhaps this has happened to you: A neighbor throws a party and things just get way too loud, and go way too late.

You might politely ask the offenders to turn it down - or you could call the police to do just that. Either way, it's not fun.

It's become a big problem in Los Angeles, especially for residents living in and around the Hollywood Hills. That's thanks to a rise in year-round rentals that are often being used solely as event spaces.

"There are party houses in the hills that were purposefully built to basically be event places in a residential area, and that are hosting 500 people every weekend of the year," said Nick Greif, policy manager for LA Councilman David Ryu.

Ryu serves many of these residents in the Hills who are being affected, like George Skarpelos, vice president of the Hollywood United Neighborhood Council.

"It's not simply about a loud party, it's the use and abuse of these residential areas for commercial and residential purposes," he said. "What we want to see is the city have an increased ability to enforce the laws that exist." 

Yesterday, the LA City Council's Planning and Land Use Management Committee proposed some regulations that are expected to be voted on by the full City Council before Christmas. 

"The current rules are easy to abuse - the one and only rule you are really violating is the noise ordinance - that makes it really hard to keep people from doing this every weekend," said Greif. "What we want to do is disincentivize future infractions, so we've created an escalating set of fines which start at $100, but escalate it for the folks who are doing it every weekend up to $8,000 for a sixth offense." 

To listen to the entire interview with Nick Greif please click on the blue player above.