Council supports rental stickers for noise complaint response

(Feb. 3, 2012) The Ocean City Council approved a motion to put a scannable sticker on rental properties to allow Ocean City Police officers to access contact information and inform property owners of noise complaints in a timely manner.

During Tuesday’s work session, Noise Control Board Chairman Brett Wolf said a problem with the current system is noise violations committed by renters of a property are mailed to the property owner and sometimes arrive 30 days after the event occurred.

“By the time the property owner gets the notification and comes to the [Noise Control Board], there’s nothing the property owner can do to address the problem because too much time is passed,” Wolf said. “Unfortunately for some people, if they have a second violation before they get notification of the first occurrence, they are at risk of losing their license and their permit.”

The stickers Wolf requested would have a property control number that would allow officers responding to complaints to access the renter’s information in the police station database and expedite the contact process. This would also help officers make note of unpaid fees and contact property owners in other emergency situations such as a fire, Wolf said.

Ocean City Police Capt. Kevin Kirstein said accessing the database in a police vehicle might not be possible, but “that would not be a deal breaker,”

“This resides on what we refer to as the ‘S drive’ in the city network,” Kirstein said. “Any city computer that has a network connection can ‘viewonly’ this information.”

Council Secretary Lloyd Martin said this system could help the rental system run more efficiently.

“We have good landlords and bad landlords,” Martin said. “The bad landlords will wait until they get a letter in the mail, and maybe a second letter, until they come before the [Noise Control Board] and the problem has existed almost all summer long.”

City Councilman Doug Cymek said he supported the program, but said he was concerned about some of the logistics, such as distinguishing between numerous rental properties located in the same building.

“We’re still experimenting trying to clean this database up, also,” Kirstein said.

After the motion passed unanimously, Mayor Rick Meehan introduced another motion to require the owner’s number be included in the contact information, along with the mandatory local number intended to have someone available in the area to help during an emergency at the property. That motion passed unanimously as well.

“That way, the contact could be made with owner — if there is a noise complaint — they know it immediately,” Meehan said. “Sometimes people don’t want to be notified.”