Members of the Syracuse Common Council are considering beefing up fines for residents accused of disturbing the peace.
These are the kinds of complaints lawmakers hear a lot, according to northside Syracuse councilor Jake Barrett. He says these types of complaints affect the quality of life of city residents, and can be big or small.
"There's the small nagging boisterous, unruly incidences, and then there's the big ones, which happened in my district.," Barrett said. "A mega-concert at the Regional Market that blasted the whole north side. So there's two larger issues, and we're trying to find the surgical instruments to address both with the same piece of legislation."
Barrett says right now, police can only issue tickets to people who don't comply with warnings.
"We're looking to put them into a verbal warning," Barrett said. "Then a first offense would be $1,000. And then would go incrementally up after that. That's the language we want to get into the new legislation. We're going to have the ability to come back a second time and issue some very significant financial penalties to those people who don't listen to reasonable discussions."
Councilor Khalid Bey says stiffening the laws could also be a way to crack down on drug houses, which often lead to lots of traffic noise and boisterous activity.
Barrett expects legislation to be crafted before the end of the year.
