Act III Episode 6 - The Ocean City Noise Ordinance Kicks In
The Ocean City Noise Ordinance, officially allocated
Public Ordinance 08201965, a euphemism for the law against music on the beach
and boardwalk went into effect at twelve noon on the Friday before Labor Day
weekend, and was to be strictly enforced.
Some of the federal emergency public safety
anti-riot funds were used to purchase, from Edmunds Scientific, a dozen
electronic noise meters that registered decibel counts that were gagged by a
needle reading, and distributed to the policeman paroling the boardwalk, mainly
untrained summer police, wanna be cops college kids, though they did pack a 38
special, which gave them some authority.
Some of the cops walked the boardwalk patrol in
pairs, while some were walking their beat alone, so the two together kept an
eye on each other, and the ones walking alone could be a little looser, like the
one who first approached Shriver’s Pavilion. He had his noise meter on kept an
eye on it and even with three acoustic guitars playing together with a bongo
and it didn’t read in the red until he was about twenty yards away, and
recognized one of the guitarists, his college roommate.
They just laughed at each other, at the whole
situation, and the cop let his mate check out and play the decibel measuring noise
meter. They quickly figured out how it works and what the level of noise was at
certain distances, and so, about a half hour later, when two more serious cops
came along, they just stopped playing all together when they got around 20
yards away, so they didn’t set the meter off and the cops just kept walking and
as soon as they 20 yards away started playing again.
So all was relatively quiet and cool at Ninth
Street, but it was a totally different story down at 14th Street,
the surfer’s beach, where Pete Carroll and the Carroll Brothers slept on the
beach practically every day, and jammed when they woke up because playing music
was not just a job to them, it was something they really liked to do and did it
as much as possible.
They usually just bring a couple acoustic guitars,
small snare drum and a sax to the beach, but because the Noise Ordinance was
going into effect, the Carroll Brothers decided to hold a peaceful, non-violent
musical protest of sorts, and with the cooperation of their friends the
Lifeguards, put a gasoline driven electric generator under the Lifeguard stand
and hung a beach blanket drape around it so it couldn’t be seen from the
boardwalk. The generator powered the amplifier and two Pioneer speakers were
put on top of the Lifeguard stand roof, and the band set up around the stand,
and they in turn were surrounded by a legion of fans, families and friends,
wall to wall so the cops couldn’t get to them.
And so it was a little after noon, when those who
were crashing on the beach were just awakening, that Pete Carroll fired up the
generator, itself loud enough to set off the noise meter, plugged in his guitar
and strummed a loud cord that could be heard at Ninth Street, five blocks away.
The two cops who were patrolling that area
immediately called in for backup, and all twelve of the boardwalk cops heard
the ten our on their walki talkies, and responded, as did almost all of the
people walking the boards and the shopkeepers in that area.
Among the witnesses to what was about to happen were
Bob Harbough in front of his grill, Freddie the Clown selling balloons, the Old
Salt from the Smuggler’s Shop, and Jiggs, an old man in a white ten gallon
cowboy hat with his name – JIGGS embroidered on it, whose daily routine was to
sit on the bench in front of Bob’s and the College Grill and flirt with all the
teenage girls in their bikinis, who all loved Jiggs.
They were all witnesses to the first time David
Brenner was arrested for driving on the boardwalk when he first got to town,
and now they were being serenaded by the Carroll Brothers, one of the house
bands from Bay Shores.
They were shortly joined by Tido Mambo, who was
concerned about his previous announcement that he would play and perform
miracles at the Ninth Street beach the following Saturday, and Lawrence Magid,
a young college student who hung out with the folkies and hippies at the Ninth
Street Pavilion and the Purple Dragon.
As the dozen cops gathered at the top of the
boardwalk stairs that led to the beach and consulted one another and with their
captain on the radio, WOND radio newsman Mike Sherman arrived, parked illegally
at the end of 14th Street at the foot of the boardwalk, and after
looking around at the scene – the cops in a huddle, the crowds on the boardwalk
and beach, and the band playing loudly around the Lifeguard stand he jumped in
the glass pay phone there, pumped in a dime and called his studio, ordering
them to stand by for a live report from Ocean City’s 14th Street
Beach, where the city’s noise ordinance was being severely tested within
minutes of going into effect.
It wasn’t
long before the KYW TV3 crew arrived in their white Chevy van with the
cameraman protruding from the hole in the roof, getting it all on film. Driving
real slow, Brenner drove over the curb and onto the sidewalk and inch by inch,
nudging pedestrians out of the way, made it to the top and pulled off to the
side next to Mike Sherman in the phone booth.
Sherman, whose view of the boardwalk and beach was
now blocked by the KYW van, grabbed the Anchorage 7 for 1 t-shirt, handed him
the phone and said, “hold this, and keep this line open, don’t hang up!,,” and
then ran around the van to join Brenner, Freddie the Clown, Jiggs and the Old
Salt among the throngs now converging on the 14th Street beach, the
Carroll Brothers music blaring in the background.
Each of the twelve cops had a noise meter and kept
looking at it, and they all read the same – the needle was as far into the red
as it could go and was bouncing against the wall.
Assistance was on the way, the riot squad was
activated. While the boardwalk cops were like summer interns, the riot squad
was made up of specially equipped, year ‘round police officers who were
undergoing special training with federal authorities.
They expected trouble and were on call, sitting
around the fire station playing pool when they were called in, and arrived in
their shinny new armored personnel carrier (APC) that was suitable for riot or
combat conditions.
There were twelve officers on the riot squad, plus a
Lieutenant who assumed command of the situation as soon as he arrived,
commandeering Jigg’s bench as a Command Post.
Each riot squad cop had a blue motorcycle helmet and
rectangular Plexiglas shields, and fell into place as soon as they jumped out
of the APC, and formed two lines of six and then fanned out into a wedge with
two shields in front and moved like a Roman Phalanx onto the boardwalk, pushing
the crowd out of the way in front of them and reported to the Lieutenant at the
park bench Command Post (CP).
The Lieutenant wasted no time evaluating the
situation and the potential for catastrophe and tried to make a few public
announcements over a microphone that were drowned out by the band. So he
ordered the riot squad to proceed onto the beach and arrest those four
crackpots playing instruments at the Lifeguard stand and they did so, much to
the dismay of the crowd, who began to cheer the band and hiss the cops and
began throwing things at them.
The KYW TV camera only titillated the college kids
who began chanting “The whole world is watching, the whole world is watching!”
The Carroll Brothers kept playing as the riot squad
made their way through the beach crowd, trampling on blankets and knocking over
beach chairs, they made no friends as made it to the Lifeguard stand and put
hand cuffs on Pete Carroll and his here band mates and led them away behind the
riot squad’s Phalanx. They were handcuffed with their hands in front of them,
and allowed to keep their instruments, and were paraded across the boardwalk
past KYW’s cameraman and Mike Sherman, reporting live over the radio from the
pay phone.
Once they were inside the new paddy wagon van, the
Carroll Brothers, even though encumbered by the handcuffs, began to play their
instruments – “Sweet Georgia Brown” could be heard by the crowd, who followed
the paddy wagon all the way to the 8th Street police station. When
they got to the police station, the crowd surged around the paddy wagon van and
when they opened the door screamed, yelled and applauded wildly at their new
heroes.
The riot squad remained at the 14th
Street boardwalk and were then ordered to return to the Lifeguard stand where a
hippie had plugged his radio into the amplifier and the music was being
broadcast. As the riot squad made their way back to the Lifeguard stand, the
pot smoking hippie surfer who volunteered to man the gas generated electric
amplifier, got some wires crossed and as he lit his pot pipe, started a fire
that startled him and as he stumbled backwards and fell into the sand, the
gasoline generator exploded launching the Lifeguard stand into the air and onto
the riot squad Phalanx and created general chaos and mayhem.
Lynda in the Shore Memorial Emergency Room began
receiving casualties shortly thereafter, first the pot smoking hippie who
caused the explosion, and then some of the riot squad who were under the
Lifeguard stand when it landed, though the injuries were light because of their
shields and helmets kept the damage low.
From the
police station pay phone Pete Carroll called Norman Stern, the new Bay Shores
manager, but Stern refused to pay the bail, set at $500, and when word of that
reached the crowd filled alley passed a hat and in about fifteen minutes the
Carroll Brothers were free, with a court date set for the following Thursday,
before Labor Day weekend.
The end result was a publicity bonanza for both the
Carroll Brothers and Bay Shores, as the incident at 14th Street made
front page newspaper headlines throughout the country, including the New York
Times and Washington Post, news articles that prominently mentioned both the
Carroll Brothers and Bay Shores and making them famous, publicity that couldn’t
be bought at any price.
That night the Bay Shores was so packed that they
were turning people away and there was a line at the door, but they wouldn’t
let someone in unless someone left, as they had reached their 1600 person
capacity, and there was a Bader’s Raider in uniform at the door to make sure
the legal capacity was not exceeded.
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