It's a postcard-perfect summer Friday afternoon the South Side. It's payday, and the boss is so happy with your work that he let you out of the office a couple hours early.

The timing is perfect.

Some friends you haven't seen in ages are visiting for the weekend, so you jump in the car and head for the grocery store to pick up brats and buns for the backyard barbecue.

Rush hour hasn't started yet, so the roads are clear. The sun is shining, the windows are down and your favorite song just came on the radio. You reach for the volume knob, ready to crank up the radio and get the weekend off to a proper start.

With spirits soaring and the bass thumping, you glance at the rear-view mirror and see a Milwaukee Police Department squad car with its red lights flashing. As you maneuver to the side of the road to get out of the way, you realize that the car being pursued is yours.

Your heart races. Your throat tightens. Your mouth goes dry. You go through the mental checklist:

I wasn't speeding.

I didn't make an illegal turn.

The registration sticker on the corner of my plate is up to date.

As the officer approaches, you reach for your driver's license and turn down the volume on your favorite song.

Too late.

You've been "bass-busted," and it's going to cost you $237.

Under a new program introduced by Ald. Bob Donovan, chair of the Common Council's Public Safety Committee, Milwaukee police have begun issuing tickets to motorists who blast their stereos at nuisance levels. If your tunes are audible at a distance of 50 feet, you're eligible for a ticket.

"Complaints about excessively loud music generated by car stereos is at the very top of the list when it comes to calls to my office, and I'm very pleased that police are addressing this very important quality of life issue," Donovan, who represents the 8th District, said in announcing the Bass Busters program, which draws its name from the booming bass sound emanating from many car stereos.

Donovan's inspiration came from a news report about a similar program in Racine, where officers use decibel-measuring detectors to identify excessively loud car stereos.

"When I saw the reports I thought, 'Why isn't this being done here?'" Donovan said.

OnMilwaukee.com got an exclusive look at the new program during a "ride-along" with Officer Mark Lelinski on Friday. We met Lelinski at District Six headquarters, 3006 S. 27th St., where we signed a few waivers and grabbed a bullet-proof vest (standard procedure for ridealongs) before heading out for the fight against noise pollution.

"Virtually everybody listens to the stereo when they are driving their car," Lelinski said. "They're either listening to talk radio or they've got music on the radio or with a CD or their iPod.

"Most of the time, you can't hear it."

Lelinski proves his point at a stop light. Idling next to a man in a black convertible, he hollers: "Is your radio on?" When the man shoots him a confused look, Lelinski asks again: "Are you listening to the radio?" The man nods. "Thanks!" Lelinski said.

"The people that crank their stereos with these big speakers in the trunk are the people we're after," the officer said. "There is nothing wrong with listening to music. It's just that other people shouldn't be forced to listen to your music at high volume, especially late at night. I wonder how some of these people would like it if I was in their neighborhood cranking my Frank Sinatra."

Noisy car stereos may not seem like a big deal, but they do impact the quality of life. A sergeant at District Six headquarters told a story of an elderly woman who lived near 27th St. and Burnham St. "In an eight-hour period, she had 30 instances where people passed her house with stereos blasting," the sergeant said. "Her walls were shaking."

By the time we join Lelinski, he had already written two tickets. One was for a 28-year-old African-American male; the other was a 19-year-old Hispanic female.

"It's mostly younger people we get," said Lelinski, who works with kids at more than 50 Milwaukee Public Schools from September to June. "A lot of old people either listen to talk radio or don't crank up their music. Most of the people we're coming across are younger."

On Friday, the Bass Buster operation appeared a lot like a speed enforcement zone. Lelinski parked the squad car on the side street just east of busy Layton Blvd. and grabbed his UltraLyte LR B laser. That device, about the size of a hair dryer, is used to detect speeders.

"The great thing about this is that it can tell you how fast cars are going, but it also measures distance," Lelinski said. "The ordinance says that if your stereo is audible at 50 feet, you're breaking the law. Fifty feet isn't very far."

Lelinski aims the laser at a series of trees adjoining the sidewalk in both directions. "The second tree there is 47 feet from us," he said, looking south. "The third tree is about 105 feet."

With our "guiding" trees established, we sit back and wait for offenders. Lelinski mentions that noisy stereos often lead to other crimes.

"People with big, expensive stereos are advertising what they have," he said. "People hear the music, follow them home and the next thing you know, we're doing an auto theft report. Their windows are smashed and the stereo is gone or else the car is gone and we find it a week later, stripped.

"If you flaunt what you've got, you're more likely to be a victim."

Lelinski also said that people who are pulled over for noise violations often have outstanding warrants or other problems.

"You're bringing attention on yourself," he said. "I pulled over a woman and she had no license and no registration."

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Recent Talkbacks ...

Posted by sharkcellar on June 5, 2009 at 6:13 p.m. (report)

How is this not racial profiling? If the point of this is to cut down on obnoxious noise coming from peoples vehicles, then how come no one is cracking down on Harley riders whose bikes can be heard from BLOCKS away. You can only really hear a bass heavy sound system when it's right on your block or a few dozen feet away. This is typical of Milwaukee racism disguised as benign public policy. Yaay! And for the record I think that loud bassy sound systems are obnoxious too, but if this is a noise ordinance then it should be one that is designed to reduced gratuitous noise and not single out blacks and hispanics for wanting to take the party with them.

Posted by karlap7106 on May 8, 2008 at 10:52 p.m. (report)

I believe there should be restrictions for after hours and early hours or excessibly loud stereos but only when witnessed by police. I do not think it's right to give public the power to just call in with a plate number and vehicle description and then you get a ticket, it will just make people take advantage and just call in because they don't like you even if you are not playing loud music.

Posted by mitchgat on July 24, 2007 at 4:31 p.m. (report)

A noise ordinance is not new. The problem is, they should have enforced it a long time ago. We've allowed people to get to a point where they feel they should be able to do what they want, when they want and never have to answer for their actions. The target audience for this, like the cruising ordinance and the Mayfair curfew policy, are PEOPLE who refuse to behave and show a common courtesy and common sense when they're in public. It's that simple. Enforce this consistently, day and night and hopefully people will get the message: turn down the radio, it's not all about you. Yes there are other things to worry about but these little nuisances, unchecked lead to much bigger things. The perception that everything is racially motivated is what stinks. Profiling sucks but when certain individuals continue to perpetuate stereotypes, that sucks just as much! Profiling and perpetuating stereotypes have created the unnecessary "walking on broken glass" syndrome when it comes to race relations in this town. Are we not smart enough as individuals to realize that one person or a small group of people do not represent an entire race? What sucks even more is people making assumptions that any ordinance that attempts to correct an annoying, rude, selfish, unnecessary behavior must be racially motivated. By this logic, if they do enforce this noise ordinance against motorcycle owners, I suppose it's profiling white males? Please. If people would use common sense and courtesy, life would be so much simpler. Sigh.

Posted by haaz on July 24, 2007 at 4:25 p.m. (report)

Frankly, I'm glad to read this. The booming bass really is annoying, and it often distracts me from the otherwise pleasant conversation I'm trying to have as I walk around Milwaukee with my friends. Yes, it will hit blacks and Latinos, but it's also a quality of life issue. That actually is the grounds for taking action about something. If someone's behavior effects your quality of life, it's legally allowable to take (legal) action about it. If your neighbor is blasting the stereo or having a 200 decibel argument at 3 A.M., you are right to call the cops on them as it detracts from your quality of life. I know who the law will in effect hit. That's unfortunate, but the people who put the ultra-powerful subwoofers in their cars are making a decision that impacts the quality of life of everyone around them. And I have actually wished this sort of law would exist. I'm glad to see it.

Posted by Blaine on July 24, 2007 at 1:27 p.m. (report)

Ok, I get it -- Loud music = tickets for noise violation. But hey On Milwaukee, here is yr news headline: What about motorcycles? A modified Harley-Davidson can crank out more decibels than a car stereo. "We're not targeting them yet, either," Lelinski said. "But, they can get loud, too." Exhaust modifications on bikes esp Harleys are just as loud a bass busters. So the MPD let's writers do ridealongs. Now go the next step and ask the follow up questions about why target some and not others. Take it from a homeowner who lives a block a Bayview motorcycle "shop", this clubhouse has folks coming and going well after midnight into post bar time. Conveniently there are never any officers around when its loud.