The Law as Scrooge

Is nothing beyond the law's reach?

When Now Thank We All Our God pealed from the loudspeakers on the steeple of Central Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Mich., at 9 a.m. on Thanksgiving, who inside the church could have suspected that the law was being violated? But Police Sergeant John Mordas, 36, awakened in his home across the street, felt differently. He was so annoyed by the intrusion of the sound of a very fine carillon on his rest that he promptly wrote up a citation and mailed it to the church's pastor, Herman J. Ridder. The charge: noise pollution. A city ordinance passed last March declares that "any noise of any kind" constitutes a "general nuisance." The fact that there happened to be majesty to this particular noise was not a mitigating factor.

Requested by the city attorney to come to some accommodation with Mordas-or risk court action-the pastor lowered the volume and agreed to change the direction of the speakers in order to disperse the sound. It could not be said that the church lacked proper regard for the rights of its neighbors. More widely adopted, however, the city's ordinance could make for a rather cheerless Christmas. Ridder has agreed that the bells will chime only five to eight minutes instead of the 18-minute Thanksgiving toll. "We don't want to be a nuisance," he says. "On the other hand, the church ought to be able to indicate its presence in a community. There is something wrong if Now Thank We All Our God is noise pollution."

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