A California tire company has been ordered to stop playing loud music near a homeless encampment after a homeless man filed a lawsuit against the company.
“The first night I went to bed at 1 a.m. The second night I couldn’t sleep through the night. And the third night, Sunday night, there was no way I could sleep,” Bruce Gaylord said. To KGO-TV.
“I’m just a person with schizoaffective disorder and mental illness.”
Gaylord said he has been living in a campground in San Rafael, California, since his truck was stolen last year while he stopped in Barstow to get medication for his mental illness.
The encampment is located next to the East Bay Tire Company on Lincoln Avenue, and Gaylord said the encampment recently began playing loud classical music to scare away the homeless people living there.
“It was painful,” he said of the music. “It was that loud. It was like a rock concert.”
He said he tried to call the police but they wouldn’t help, so he called homeless advocate Robbie Powelson, who went to the scene to record music near the encampment.
“We measured the decibels of the sound. It was between 50 and 118 decibels. It was well above the noise regulations in San Rafael in general, so it was illegal,” Powelson said. He told KRON-TV.
“Robbie was a godsend,” Gaylord said.
Powelson filed a lawsuit against the company, and a judge ordered the company to temporarily stop playing the music.
“Everything from illegal drug use to prostitution.”
Robbie Daho, assistant manager at East Bay Tire, told KGO that they had prepared music and security announcements to protect employees and discourage any overflow from the encampment.
“It’s hard work because I have to come out here every morning and pick up trash, glass and all that stuff,” Delho said.
“We have people who come here at 5:30 in the morning,” he continued. “They’re all working alone. We offer 24-hour roadside service. Technicians come in at night, at 3 in the morning, and they’re all working alone.”
Delo added that his company employees have witnessed everything from illegal drug use to prostitution at the campsite, and showed KGO where someone had fired a gun at a building, damaging it.
The company denies that the music is intended to scare away the homeless, but Gaylord said he would continue the lawsuit to protect people at the encampments.
“I’m a person with schizoaffective disorder and mental illness, and as you can see, I’m in a wheelchair,” Gaylord said.
He also said the company failed to provide police reports to support its claims that homeless people at the encampment were “bad neighbors.”
Despite the victory over Classical Music, the encampment could be demolished if the city prevails in a separate lawsuit.
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