Well, it’s over. The “reasonable person” is dead. Or is it? The U.S. Supreme Court denied the request for a writ of certiorari by the City of Virginia Beach to review the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision overturning the City’s noise ordinance in Tanner v. City of Virginia Beach, 277 Va. 432, 674 S.E.2d 848 (2009). [...]

I have prosecuted noise ordinance violations, litigated the very issues decided by the Virginia Supreme Court in Tanner, and authored the LGA/VML amicus curiae brief filed in that case. Like many local government attorneys and their clients, I am struggling with the case’s impacts on local government noise ordinances. In its opinion, the Virginia Supreme [...]