Years ago we lost our field in Springfield, Mo. due to complaints from a neighbor. The field had been in use for 15 years at the time. The officials came out and checked the decibel levels at the field and the surrounding area and found that we were well within the law for noise. They informed the complainer of this but he was not satisfied. He started bothering every public official he could find. Any time there was a complaint, they had to come out and check us out again. They never found any problem, but they had to go through the motions just the same. It finally got to be such a bother that we all got tired of being harrassed and gave up the field.

By the time we left the field, the complainer had also move out of the area, but it was too late to save the club. We eventually found out that the complainer was a retired Marine Corp Gunnery SGT that was almost LEGALLY DEAF!! Turns out noise wasn't the problem, but just a deisre to stop anyone else from having any fun as he was bitter at the world for dealing him a bad hand.

The moral of the story is, Don't take it at face value that noise is the real problem. It may be something else that has the neighbors up in arms, like safety concerns that they don't understand.