Whether you're a freshman still hung over after drinking the sweet nectars of discount keg beer, a seasoned frat party veteran, an upperclassmen who plays World of Warcraft all night on the weekends or a bitter, aged, uneducated Baltimore resident, you're certainly familiar with the loud noises that inevitably accompany any college student's average Friday night. And depending on where you fall on this continuum, you probably have experienced nighttime noise with something between excitement and deep anger.
Or maybe you are a junior who's had this conversation with your new housemates:
"Dude, our new house is totally awesome."
"Dude, we should totally have a party."
(Baltimore City Councilwoman Mary Pat Clarke enters room.) "Dude, you guys are totally going to get evicted."
The average college student surely thinks, "What? How can that be? This is America!" Well, sort of. This is Maryland, and specifically Baltimore, where civil liberties are not near the top of the list of things that need to be protected. If you don't believe me, try buying a gun to protect yourself in what is routinely one of the most dangerous cities in America. It's hard to do.
And as we've seen in other parts of the country, if your gun and reproductive rights aren't secure, the rest of your rights, such as your right to live wherever you want without harassment, aren't secure either. In the city of Baltimore, where 40 percent of adult residents lack even a high school diploma, City Council has made "Neighborhood Nuisances" an issue. That's right. You can get evicted from your residence if you're tagged as a "neighborhood nuisance."
Surely there must be some sort of system through which you have some due process and a chance to defend yourself before being labeled a nuisance and being evicted, right? After all this is America.
Wrong; Baltimore isn't really America. All it takes is an unruly neighbor who hates you to make two anonymous (yes, anonymous) noise complaints to Baltimore's police department, at whose discretion you may be labeled a neighborhood nuisance after a minimum of just two complaints. And for the record, you can also get fined $500 and spend a year sitting in city jail with Baltimore's finest criminals (who probably didn't graduate from high school). Legal scholars and Baltimoreans with a passing interest in residential continuity have of course questioned the constitutionality of this law, but as of right now, it sits on the books, ready to be enforced.
Ordinarily, proposing a law that can be construed as being targeted at a certain group (namely, Hopkins students) with provisions as extreme as forced eviction, and which is cosponsored by someone with a demonstrable history of hatred or contempt for the group in question might have future election repercussions for that policymaker. It seems doubtful that this will prove to be the case. Councilwoman Clarke has been in office longer than most freshmen and sophomores have been alive, though luckily the city at large rejected her bid for mayor in 1995. Even so, this writer is not without fear that social gatherings at his own domicile won't be subject to anonymous noise complaints from vigilante neighbors or council members, and that very fact would seem to indicate that this law is problematic.
This, of course, is not unfounded hogwash. I've personally talked to individuals (who wish not to be named, for obvious reasons) living on my block who have had neighbors say things like, "If I hear one note of music after midnight, I'm calling the police." This sort of asinine warning is practically welcome, considering the inane nature and ramifications of this law. Thanks, neighbor! You know I wouldn't dream of calling the police on you!
And so, roving neophyte hedonist, as you patrol the streets of Charles Village in your drunken state, please try to self-check your noise level. The cumulative effect of loud college students on people past the age of having fun raises their blood pressure and drives them to the phone and then to the window, where they watch the destruction of lives that they themselves have initiated, while that little voice inside of them says, "Maybe I should have had more fun when I was that age." This voice is of course silenced by the joy of seeing students handcuffed and eviction notices placed on front doors.
And you, soon-to-be-sorry new row house tenant, should probably be mindful of the guests you admit and eject from your house, since you are still responsible for them once they hit the sidewalk.
I mean not to nanny you the way the City That Once Read and Now Bleeds does, but frankly, you have no legal recourse should you get evicted. And let's be honest: How well can you trust a government elected by a population of which only 60 percent have a diploma to take care of you?
