A group of residents is suing a farmer, claiming the propane cannon he uses to scare away birds from his sweet corn is too loud.
Well, hell, yeah! What’s the point of putting a silencer on a cannon? Especially when it’s designed to make noise and not shoot a projectile.
Sounds like the farmer might have a chance of winning this one.
Jessamine County's noise-control ordinance exempts from penalties a "noise disturbance created by farm livestock, the operation of farm machinery or noise created by other activities relating to an agricultural operation."
But the neighbors apparently do not understand farming.
Steve Ayres, another plaintiff in the lawsuit filed last week, said that the group doesn't believe a cannon is a normal agricultural sound.
Now, as I understand the operations of these propane cannons, they can be set on a timer and fired automatically. If it weren’t for that, I would suggest that the farmer just get himself some Civil War reenactment materiel and blast away. (Or figure out how to fire a projectile from his cannon the 500 yards to the plaintiffs’ yards.)
If I were the judge in this case my first question would be about time of residency. As in how long the farm has been in operation and how long the neighbors have lived where they do. My second would be about the knowledge of the neighbors as to the presence of a farm next door when they purchased their home.
This probably ranks right up there with the folks in the new development who complained about the smell of manure spreading on the dairy farm next door. They had moved into a development carved out of an old farm and then filed a complaint. The judge asked just those two questions and got the replies. The farm had been a family operation for generations. The "newbies" knew about the farm when they bought their homes. Case dismissed.
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