Location: United States, Maryland

I'm currently in the process of working with my local County Counsel in regards to a business bypassing the County Ordinances and disrupting an existing rural neighborhood with extremely loud events. I can understand at a glance that I seem to come off as a 'Karen', but I've been putting up with this for years, even to the point these issues have forced me out of my home against my will to avoid the noise. I've spent years of sucking up and dealing with it, I've had enough and am working towards a solution.

Post COVID a local farm has that hosts a festival a couple times a year to 'promote' their business has progressively increased their performers amplified volumes and added very deep bass subwoofers. Where I live is rural (all areas around me are zoned Agricultural) and has been slowly migrating away from it (culturally, not legally) over time with city minded businesses buying out rural farms to make them a tourist stop. Most of the time this isn't an issue, but their festivals are so loud that they shake my home which is just shy of a mile away by a few hundred feet, this is based as the crow flies. For years now, I've tried to politely ask them to turn down their amplified speakers (mainly the bass) to which I'm tired of being told to 'fuck off'. Just to make sure I had a standing with evidence, I've made sure to file formal complaints with the local Sherrif's and have been told "they have a permit, there is nothing that can be done. But we will document this in the event there are future issues." Even with that I was hoping to build a record of reports if it came to the point it has. This last event wasn't just shaking my home with the bass levels, but I could feel the bass reverberating within my chest while in doors. Even upon telling this to the local Sherrif's I was yet again told "They have their permits." Before taking it to the next level of seeking a lawyer, I wanted to politely work with my local County Counsel to see if we could come to a solution. I drafted up an indepth email referencing specific subsections of the latest published Zoning Ordinance and showed how it didn't tie to the permitted use cases that were defined in the published County Ordinance. It took a month, but I finally got a response back. The reponse that took over a month has me floored.

Long story short, per reviewing the latest version of the County Ordinance Codes, specifically in regards to zoning I kicked a hornets nest when I provided how the Ordinances for zoning clearly do not allow their (the busineeses) applied use based on the zoning Permitted Use Table. A few things out of their response have me floored and I wanted to confirm that my interpretation of what they said is correct.

The Director of Department of Development Reveiw and Planning explained in his response that the use this business falls under is defined in a section that was added to the zoning Ordinance back in 2018. It was defined as a use type, it was not added to the Permitted Use Table, but another Bill "clearly notes the intent to 'amend' the county code for [previously defined use type]". As someone who has to deal with Federal compliance documentation, I read this in two different ways. The first way being a human interpretation that they messed up on an edit though it's been approved. But at the same time I professionally read this as "it was approved to be amended, but not implemented into the Ordinance Laws." Legally speaking, a Bill does not become a law just because it was approved, but because the approved verbiage was written into the actual Ordinance Laws. The verbiage that is in the latest public version of Ordinances are the Law, regardless of if a Bill to amend it has been approved, right? Until the Ordinances are updated, the law was broked up until that point, right? The other portion of his response that has me calls back to the previously defined use case that was never amended. The use case definition of the use case that was not added to the Permitted Use Table states "A Business must obtain a one-time zoning certificate prior to hosting promotional events." Per the Director "The festivals at this business predate the adoption of the additional zoning permitted use case. We do not have a record of issuing a one-time zoning certificate from this business as required by the 2018 law." Again my interpretaton of this goes two ways. Since the Ordinances were not updated, it wasn't law and no other use cases align with what they were doing, so it was/is illegal and a breach of Ordinance laws. On the otherhand to give them leeway, the approved Bill was enough to make it law, but the business didn't follow the process and the County allowed 'non-approved uses of land' to go on without intervening. The Director also never provided comment on what permits they did acquire to justify what was going on.

I'm just trying to get on the right page of which interpretation is the 'fact of law' because moving forward I want to hold the appropriate people accountable.

Thanks for reading!