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Who responds to middle-of-the-night noise complaints? No one, soon

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Ottawa police are downloading middle-of-the-night noise complaints to the city’s bylaw office. And that has councillors and community groups concerned because bylaw officers don’t work during the middle of the night.

As it stands, noise complaints are handled by bylaw officers until 2 a.m. (4 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday mornings). The bylaw officers are sometimes backed up by police, if needed. At the end of the bylaw shift, police take over complaints until 6 a.m., when the next shift of bylaw officers returns to duty.

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But as part of a forthcoming package of efficiencies, Ottawa police will stop investigating early-morning noise complaints unless there’s a public safety issue or a criminal offence being committed. Complaints would wait until morning for bylaw officers.

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Under the initiative, police will only answer “pure” noise calls, said Ottawa police Insp. Paul Gallant. If there’s a raucous party, but no report of law-breaking, police won’t attend. If intoxicated partygoers are staggering onto the road and smashing beer bottles, they will.

“Those are two different types of calls,” said Gallant.

The change allows police to focus on their core duties, he said. “It’s a question of being able to focus on our own specific mandate and being able to respond when criminal activity is taking place.”

It’s unclear when the change will come into effect. But city councillors say they only learned about the change in a Thursday memo, and they have concerns about it.

Coun. Diane Deans, chair of the community and protective services committee, called the changes “problematic.” The police might be saving money, but it will have a domino effect, she said.

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“A noise call can be the tip of an iceberg. It can escalate, if we don’t don’t have the opportunity to de-escalate, we’re saying, ‘Go wild!'” said Rideau-Vanier Coun. Mathieu Fleury. About 90 per cent of noise complaints happen in Fleury’s ward and Coun. Catherine McKenney’s Somerset ward.

Bylaws officers and police work well together and this new system puts them into silos, said Fleury. “It’s a team effort. If we create a silo, we eliminate all the police enforcement tools that bylaw can’t leverage.”

Anthony DiMonte, the city’s acting general manager of community and protective services, estimates that there will be 3,600 annual noise complaint calls that police won’t be answering under the new system.

Not responding to complaints won’t solve noise problems, he said. Bylaw’s first objective in defusing a noise situation is to go to the door and let the tenant or homeowner know about the complaint and to document it. A second or third complaint might result in charges. If bylaw officers investigate in the morning after a party, it’s hard to prove that there was a problem, especially if the complainant doesn’t want to step forward to be a witness.

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“The people who are hurt by noise complaints are other tenants and neighbours,” said John Dickie, chair of the Eastern Ontario Landlord Organization, which represents the owners and managers of 37,000 Ottawa rental units. 

Dickie understands if police can’t investigate noise complaints because they have other things to do. “But if the police are driving around at 3 a.m., I would think they could go to the call.”

It’s rare that a party will rage on that late into the small hours, said Bob Forbes of Action Sandy Hill. But if no one intervenes, the party could carry on.

“Especially if that’s the way the system works,” he said. “It would be an incentive for the parry to go late into the night, or after the bars close.”

Noise complaints have been on the decline over the past five years, primarily because of a “town-and-gown” committee aimed at students and headed by Fleury, said Dickie. Their efforts have included two annual educational campaigns, one during frosh week and another in the spring. 

“At least the trend line is declining,” said Dickie.  “This would not be helpful.”

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