§ 9-402. Declaration of findings and intent.

(a) Importance of Market Center.

(1) The Mayor and City Council finds that the Market Center Urban Renewal Area serves the City in many important and irreplaceable ways. Most obviously, the area is a heavily used and essential retail and office district, providing job and shopping opportunities for countless thousands of City residents.

(2) Equally important, however, is the traditional role that the area serves as a public forum for many diverse kinds of City residents. On any given day, dozens of people come to the district to promote their ideas on a wide variety of topics.

(b) Amplified sounds as hindrance.

(1) The Mayor and City Council further finds that publicly amplified sounds have hindered the use of the Market Center Urban Renewal Area, both as a shopping, office, and employment center and as a marketplace for the exchange of ideas.

(2) While recognizing that, in some instances, the reasonable use of amplification equipment facilitates the exchange of ideas, the Mayor and City Council finds that the indiscriminate use of this equipment in the Market Center has created a condition demonstrably injurious to the health, welfare, and safety of the citizens of Baltimore.

(3) Specifically, the Mayor and City Council finds that publicly amplified sound:

(i) can be injurious to the health of those exposed to it;

(ii) when coming from or near a first floor business, impairs the use of offices above that business;

(iii) deters people from coming to the Market Center to shop, work, and exchange ideas;

(iv) hinders efforts to attract new businesses to the Market Center;

(v) can be hazardous to pedestrians and motorists in the Market Center; and

(vi) aggravates an already-existing din that is caused by the architecture, building arrangement, proximity of businesses, and topography of the area and that is at its worst between 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Through the enactment of this subtitle, the Mayor and City Council intends:

(1) to promote the use of the retail district both as a shopping, office, and employment center and as a marketplace for the exchange of ideas; and

(2) to control the negative effects of publicly amplified sounds while allowing reasonable use of electronic amplification equipment.