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Del Mar may police loud motorcycles

Posted at 6:08 PM, Apr 29, 2016
and last updated 2016-04-29 21:08:16-04

Some residents in Del Mar are asking law enforcement to help solve a growing problem in their city -- motorcycle noise.

"It's not that we can see them; it's that we can hear them," said Rufus Abelsohn, who owns a shop on the city's main drag.

Some locals said they're fed up with the noisy motorcycles tearing through their neighborhoods and downtown. They want the Del Mar City Council to do something about it.

On Monday, that could become a bit closer to reality. The council will discuss paying the San Diego County Sheriff's Department an extra $65 an hour to hire -- ironically -- a motorcycle officer to police motorcycles that are breaking state noise codes.

"A fix-it ticket? Yes, a real ticket? We don't want to scare people away," Abelsohn said, noting he has already been seeing fewer visitors in the city.

One motorcyclist said any new ordinance to police motorcyclists would discourage visitors.

A city report says the local noise laws may be hard to enforce because the noise meters can't isolate sound levels from individual motorcycles.