Henderson council debates tacos and noise

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2001 | 11:21 a.m.

Spending

The City Council approved the following Tuesday night:

To PR Burke Corp. to complete upgrades of the water treatment plant.

To Las Vegas Paving for combined private and Clark County pollution funds to pave 32,138 linear feet of dirt roads east of Lake Mead Drive and south of Athens Avenue.

To add an additional administrative secretary in the city manager's office, including an annual salary of $28,550 and office expenses.

For starting salary of administrative analyst for the construction management division of Public Works.

For bonds and $558,731 to American Nevada Corp. for public improvements in the Limited Improvement District.

For purchase of a 1,256-square-foot parcel at Our Saviors Lutheran Church, 59 Lynn Lane, for inclusion in the Henderson Adult Recreation Center.

The question has been asked before: If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?

The Henderson City Council untangled a similar baffler Tuesday night in a 5-0 vote.

Instead of solving the decibel level of far-off timber, the council wrestled a more suburban quandary. They attempted to estimate whether late-night orders of burritos and french fries at a proposed Taco Bell drive-through would fall within earshot of Michael Dandridge's master bedroom about 380 feet away.

The answer: Yes. And no.

Yes, the crackling box would add to the overall noise in the neighborhood, council members agreed. But no, Michael Dandridge and his wife, who is 4 1/2 months pregnant with their first child, probably would not be disturbed from sleep.

After a philosophical debate that ruminated on everything from the meaning of community to the beauty of a coyote's howl, the council approved the high-tech speaker box for a 120-day period. But if Dandridge, the lone protester, complains, council members warned they would not hesitate to order the fast-food joint to rip out the $1,500 machine.

Chances are, Dandridge won't.

"I never anticipated hearing it," said Dandridge, 35, a first-time homeowner and director of human resources at Binion's Horseshoe. "But it's not a question of whether or not I can hear it. It's a matter of community standards. Henderson is not Las Vegas, it's not New York City, and it's not Chicago. Those cities already have that ambient noise. But here we have an opportunity, even with the growth, to set standards."

George Garcia, a consultant for Taco Bell franchisee LasCal Corp., argued the opposite. He said the issue was a national one, and that it has everything to do with noise levels. "Certainly this is something Taco Bell is sensitive to because it's not an issue that's unique to Henderson," Garcia said. "This is a high-tech speaker box. As ambient noise diminishes, so will the volume of the speaker box."

For David Bonanni, vice president of development for LasCal Corp., the issue is one of consistency.

City ordinances prohibit speaker boxes within 1,000 feet of residential neighborhoods. But in May 1999 the council granted a waiver to Bonanni's next-door competition on Eastern Avenue, a Wendy's restaurant. Bonanni wanted to even the competition.

"We were the first restaurant up there, and we built to code. Since then, Wendy's, KFC, and everyone else got their variances. We felt that since everyone had been successful, we'd go in (for a variance), too."

But Dandridge asked the council at what point would all of the variances create a giant background buzz of ambient noise.

Clark liked the question. He called it "the Dandridge effect."

"At what point do we get to when we stop being fair? Taco Bell, Wendy's, Burger King, McDonald's -- does everyone get a speaker box because we have to be fair?" Clark said. "My conclusion, frankly, is not whether he (Dandridge) can hear the speaker box. It's like the argument about the tree falling in the forest."

Mayor Jim Gibson said he wasn't convinced by Taco Bell's argument that people would give up a burrito for a burger "just so they can speak to the box." But like Clark, he found the argument of the cumulative effect of noise intriguing.

"Down the road, we'll have to keep the Dandridge argument in mind," Gibson said. "Since we tend to have nodes of commerce, we tend to load them up. But there's something to be said for evaluating the background noise as we go."

But even with the increased drone of traffic along Eastern Avenue, the noise of people pumping gas at the Turtle Stop and the potential added noise of the Taco Bell speaker box, Dandridge said, he still hasn't lost one of the things he loves most about living in the shadow of Black Mountain.

"You can still hear the howl of the coyotes," he said.