War against noise – Sullana

Neighbors complained to the Municipality and the Prosecution but the claim seems to be frozen.

 

By Nelson Peñaherrera Castillo

 

SULLANA, Peru— The city seems to suffer from nyctophobia, the pathologic ffear to remain silent. It’s one of few cities where there are neighbors who decided to fight the noise. A hundred of them has opened a Facebook group to agree legal actions purposed to turn down the urban sound.

At Barrio Sur, Martin Herrera Reto is like a coordinator and manager. He lives on Hipolito Unanué Street, that begins at the gate of Luciano Castillo Colonna Sub-Regional Direction of Health, then runs in parallel to Chira River. He has got a view to the valley from his backyard: “we hear the music like it were right here, sometimes it lasts through overnight,”

Near his home, between Arica and Paita Streets and next to the stair going down Huamán de los Heros Pier, an apparently informal gymnasium works noisily. “It begins at 7:30 in the morning, then interrupts around 10:00, starts at 4:00 to 7:00 in the afternoon,” he tells.

A lady living across has demanded the owner to reduce the power but the guy said her, bad mannered, he won’t turn ddown anything because that is his house.

 

How does the noise bother you?

The group of neighbors have already complained at Sullana Province Municipality’s (MPS as in Spanish) Prosecution Office and lawsuits at the Public Ministry (PM). As much as it’s known, there was no much progress and more problems are upcoming.

“The ones in my block fear a facility has already set up as a cecebichería, and we already know that ends in a karaoké, restobar or disco,” Martin Herrera claims. “I’ve already warned the municipality and they just notified them.” The facility seems not to have acoustic isolation, the wall seeing to the valley is open.

“They’re follies, an insult – imagine the municipality says me in its reply: what does it bothers to the plaintiff?,” Herrera affirms adding it was not solved neither  about the sellers with speakers, he’s ever demanded to be more explicit about his complaint.

He assures he was wielded with reasons like it’s not possible to threaten the private investment, although in fact, the zonification of some residential areas had been turning to commercial corridors, so justifying some business like a disco just a block away Turicarami Circus, West Sullana City.

 

Legal Fight

On the corner of Jose de Lama Avenue and El Carmen Street, Santa Rosa urbanization, Terrazas is working. According to Lucy Guevara, who lives in front of the facility, it is licensed to be a restaurant and pub, but the attention extends at nights and overnights like a disco as much as on December 25^th, 2021, a drunk 17-year-old female was detained.

Mrs Guevara suffers from diabetes, she has a daughter in cancer treatment: “The sugar doesn’t reduce to me because I’m constantly distressed,” she protests. But instead, she has attended often to MPs and PM to present claims and files what ended involving municipal officials, one pressumibly linked to Terrazas, as two Piura-based media discovered.

According to her, the verification procedures had been irregular. “Despite, they detected the noise reaches 60 decibels in my house, but  72 ddecibels in the neighbor who lives next to [Terrazas].”

One decibel (dB) measures the relation between the air moving the sound and how this is perceived by the human ear. The World Health Organization considers it as a noise when it overcomes 65 dB during daytime, 55 dB during the night. Also, it says the maximum exposure to car traffic must not exceed 53 dB during daytime, 47 dB during the night.

We asked the MPS about the status of those complaints. It was said us it was asked to Prosecution Office. We have no answer until the deadline of this story. Meanwhile, the neighbors continue talking about new legal actions on Facebook – they are not going to give up, they say.

 

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