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It’s time to turn the volume down in one Northeast Ohio city.
Officials are cracking down to make people be quiet in Sheffield Lake.
The Sheffield Lake City Council gave the green light to a noise ordinance that sets stricter criteria for what constitutes as a noice disturbance in the city.
Councilman Rocky Radeff explained to Cleveland’s Fox 8 that it all started with complaints of loud music to Mayor Dennis Bring’s office: “We’ve had various complaints in which they weren’t able to do anything,” because the decibel levels were too low to issue citations, Radeff told Fox 8.
The ordinance reportedly caps the decibel limit at 40 between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., and boosts the limit to 60 decibels during the day.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), explains that a “normal conversation” rings in at about 60 decibels.
The same NIOSH infographic also breaks down much higher noise levels, all the way up to a pneumatic precision drill at a whopping 119 decibels.
The new Sheffield Lake ordinance reduces the decibel cap to a near whisper overnight, which NIOSH says is about 30 decibels.
Test your knowledge on sound and ear safety using this CDC quiz here.