Analysis

Many students at the University of Vermont have become accustomed to the rather arbitrary nature of Burlington’s noise ordinance. It does not take much more than a small gathering to illicit a hefty ticket for violating the ordinance, so it has many wondering, what exactly can we do? This is not an easily answered question and when attempting to answer it in consideration of religious freedom, it gets even harder.

The purpose of Burlington’s ordinance is as follows:

(a) Purpose: The purpose of this section is to preserve the public health, safety, and welfare by prohibiting excessive and disturbing noise and to prevent noise which is prolonged or unsuitable for the time and place and which is detrimental to the peace and good order of the community. It is the goal of this section to allow all residents of our city to peacefully coexist in a manner which is mutually respectful of the interests and rights of others” (Burlington Noise Control Ordinance).

The preservation of public safety is an inarguably important facet of local government. However, with cases like Costello v. City of Burlington, it makes one wonder how far the government is able to go when controlling sound. Burlington’s noise ordinance continues on to state that it is unlawful, “for any person to make or cause to be made any loud or unreasonable noise.” So, what exactly makes a noise unreasonable? The law states that it becomes unreasonable when it endangers the health, safety, or welfare of the community. While this may seem straight forward, it is rather hard to pin down. There are various noises that many may see as perfectly acceptable and a small few may deem a nuisance. In cases like Costello v. City of Burlington, it seems the town is quick to close down the freedom to practice religion, barring loud preaching on its streets.

In his book, Religion Out Loud, Professor Isaac Weiner presented us with the illusory logic of religious pluralism within the United States. When observing the problems that arise within Burlington’s soundscape, such as the Church Bells, and Church St. preachers, its important to remember one of his main points; it is not always the dominant sounds that obtain legitimacy. In an attempt to allow a religious minority the right to sound, pluralists reinforced a Protestant paradigm of what religion should sound like. This development or ‘norms’ often leads to the government being able to utilize the arbitrariness of laws like the noise ordinance in order to keep things ‘normal’. The courts have already decided Burlington is within its rights in deciding the ordinance as they did, but do believe it to be fair?

Analysis

On a Saturday morning in 2007, William Ray Costello—an Anabaptist Christian street-preacher—began to loudly preach the gospel at the pedestrian mall on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont. Claiming that his preaching was creating a disturbance to nearby shoppers and storeowners, Sgt. John Lewis of the Burlington Police Department approached Costello and told him to lower the volume of his voice. Costello refused—stating he had a “right to preach the gospel with a loud voice”—and prepared to defend his first amendment rights to the officer. Lewis responded saying: “I'm not telling you that you can't preach, I'm telling you that you can't be out here shouting and yelling anything, and disrupting other folks that are trying to use the same space that you are” (Costello v. City of Burlington, 2011). Sgt. Lewis issued Costello a written warning. The warning stated that Costello was in violation of Burlington’s noise control ordinance—which prohibits individuals from producing ‘unreasonable’ noise.

Costello filed suit against the city and the police department, arguing that the noise control ordinance unfairly violated his civil and religious liberties. In court, however, the District Judge ruled that Costello’s constitutional rights had not been violated, because the ordinance did not entirely prohibit him from preaching. Rather, it only restricted him from preaching at such a high volume. Defiant and determined, Costello appealed the case to the United States Court of Appeals. The court reviewed the case and granted Costello an appeal—but not on the grounds of religious expression or freedom of speech. Instead, the court was solely interested in establishing whether or not the noise ordinance had been applied unequally to Costello with regards to noise level. In other words, the court sought to determine the normal noise level of Church Street, in order to decide if Costello was in fact producing ‘unreasonably’ louder sounds. Finding a relatively low average noise level for Church Street on a Saturday morning, the court again ruled in favor of the city and the police department, arguing that the volume of Costello’s preaching was comparably louder than that of the normal Church Street soundscape.

What began four years earlier as a case of freedom of speech and religious expression, had transformed into a case governed exclusively by issues of comparative noise volume. The legal system treated the sounds of Costello’s preaching as sounds like any other, seemingly ignoring their religious significance and separating them entirely from religiosity itself. In doing so, the courts created a problematic distinction between Costello’s religion and his style of worship, and assumed that his right to religious freedom could be altogether separated from his right to loudly and publicly preach the gospel. As author Isaac Weiner points out in his book “Religion Out Loud: Religious Sound, Public Space, and American Pluralism”, the legal system failed to realize that “making noise was not merely incidental to [Costello’s] work; it was [his] work” (Weiner, p. 80).

Thus, the Costello v. City of Burlington court case provides valuable insight into the complex legal interplay between sound, space, and religion in Burlington by holding issues of public nuisance at a higher importance than those of individual religious expression. Still, it is important to recognize that the Burlington community is not one that is void of religious diversity or religious tolerance. Rather—adopting the framework of Weiner—it appears that the politics of Burlington’s public space seem to be part and parcel of a larger paradoxical narrative of a pluralistic religious social order. One that strives for the inclusion and acceptance of all religious beliefs, while making specific historically and socially informed judgments about appropriate and inappropriate means of public sound making. If the case of Costello v. City of Burlington teaches us one thing, it is that religious sound does exist in Burlington, Vermont—and William Ray Costello is proof of this fact. However, this case should also remind us that religious sounds are not necessarily an integral part of Burlington’s public soundscape, but are perhaps reserved exclusively for the private sphere.

Analysis

Since the arrival of Church Street as the main shopping drag and the increasing gentrification of the city, consumerism has dug itself deeper into downtown Burlington, driving the divisions between social class deeper and a rise in the homelessness population of Burlington. Statistically speaking, while the average household income of the U.S. and of VT has been increasing, the average household income of Burlington has been decreasing steadily1. There has been overall an increasing population of those struggling to create and sustain a living due to Burlington’s lack of affordable housing, thus leading to a steadily increasing homeless population. This population of Burlingtonians however have refused to become silenced by the cash cow of Church Street and the gentrification of their city and have become (literally) vocal about the issue, thus recreating their space through sound. Their vocal expression however, whether that be through pan-handling or public speech is often thwarted and/or subverted by the dominant class. Because of this rising issue in the city, what better way to comprehend its severity than through its soundscapes? The sounds emitted by these varying populations (lower and upper class) reveal the sonorous ontological politics of the area and provide us with a deeper understanding for the issue. By identifying which sounds are the dominant sounds in each area, we can get a broader look at the values and mentality of the residents living in that community, since the dominant sounds in the area would reflect what the residents deemed sacred. If we achieve this through the study, perhaps we can gain a greater understanding of classicism in Burlington and how each side of the income spectrum develops their sense of space.

As explained earlier, classicism is heavily on the rise in Burlington. The following charts display an overall decrease in median household income in Burlington over the years, while the rest of the state and the country experiences a steady increase.

Real Median Household Income for Burlington Vermont

2014 1 Year Change 3 Year Change

US $53,657 +1.04% +0.93%

Vermont $54,166 +1.36% -2.50%

Burlington $61,947 -1.73% -3.16%

Burlington Family Income

The ACS 1-year data shows the median family income for Burlington was $79,838 in 2014. Compared to the median Vermont family income, Burlington median family income is $12,684 higher. As with the median household income data, 2015 family income data for Burlington will be released in September of 2016.

Show dollars as: Nominal Real

Real Median Family Income for Burlington Vermont

2014 1 Year Change 3 Year Change

US $65,910 +1.28% +1.88%

Vermont $67,154 -3.38% -3.62%

Burlington $79,838 -4.05% -1.66%

Not only is median household income on the steady decline, but homelessness rates in Burlington are staggering as well. While exact statistics on homelessness are difficult to calculate, COTS, a local Burlington organization for combatting homelessness, estimates on its website that “…at least 66 percent of Burlington households cannot afford the average fair market rent in the city. COTS serves about 1,600 homeless persons each year, with family shelters in three locations that are open 24 hours a day for children and their guardians” 2 . Not only is there a substantial amount of homeless people being served by COTS, but an estimated 66% of Burlington households cannot afford the average fair market rent in the city. Keeping this in mind, to find a soundscape that encapsulates the intersections and struggles of both the upper and lower class, I had to choose an area of the city where both classes intersected. One spot in particular that fits the bill is Cherry Street (around the Rite Aid, to be exact). This area borders both a local hang out spot for the homeless population of Burlington as well as the very commercial and bourgeoisie infested Church Street. In the soundscape listed on this website (simply labeled as the Rite Aid soundscape), the convivial conversations and happenings of the homeless population mesh with the serene sounds of peaceful shoppers on Church Street.

In analyzing the class sound politics of this specific area and of Burlington altogether, several integral concepts in the study of sound and religion come into play, the first being sonorous ontological politics. Sonorous ontological politics, an idea championed by Andrew Eisenberg in his work, Islam, Sound and Space, can be defined as the societal and/or political relationship with being and sound. Specifically in Eisenberg’s work, he applies this concept to the khutbas (religious sermons broadcasted on Fridays) as contributing to the creation of a seemingly public neutral state into a religious one3. This concept can be applied in our study of this particular soundscape of Burlington by analyzing how the sounds emitted by either class contribute to one’s sense of space. Particularly when one transfers from one area to another, from the specific hang out by Rite Aid to the very edge of Church Street for example, one’s understanding of Burlington’s class politics shift dramatically. A person walking primarily down the main drag of Church Street while listening to the busy shoppers and peaceful classical music playing from the loudspeakers will almost certainly have a different perception of classicism in Burlington rather than a person who primarily walks down the area by the Rite Aid where the homeless population hangs out. Just listening in on their conversations about finding shelter or food for the night can sharply affect one’s view on the class struggles in Burlington. Another concept that must be understood if one is to fully grasp the soundscape of the Rite Aid area is acoustic dominance. Described by Isaac Weiner in his work, Religion Out Loud, Weiner explains the concept as, “not so much a matter of drowning out all other sounds with one’s voice, but of being able to take for granted the right to do so without complaint”4 . As we can hear on the recording, the noises emitted by Church Street (present around halfway through the recording for roughly about 3 minutes), the area is relatively quiet, except for the few shoppers chatting and the noise of a truck unloading beer into a bar. But the noises emitted by Church Street are more tolerated not because they are necessarily quieter than those by the Rite Aid, but because they are more socially acceptable because of their class association.

I believe that studying the soundscape of the Rite Aid offers a small but important step to helping us to discover more about both sides of the class spectrum in Burlington. More soundscapes of more areas of the city should absolutely be done if one is to get a comprehensive understanding of the sound class politics of Burlington. Understanding how both sides create a concrete public space into something else, whether it be through religious or secular sounds, is paramount to comprehending the sonorous ontological political feel of both sides which is in turn key in understanding how both parties view each other and the current classicism grappling Burlington.