Salvation Army To Search Out Quieter Jingle Bell After Police Complaints

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle All The…excuse me but could you keep it down?

Captain Deb Coolidge said that the local chapter of The Salvation Army has announced they are searching out quieter Jingle Bells one day after Sarah Hamilton Parker called police to complain about the noise she was hearing by her work. Coolidge also said that the Salvation Army will limit the amount of people with bells to one.

Upon hearing the news Hamilton-Parker said:

“I certainly appreciate that, anything they can do to knock down that sound.”

Both Coolidge and Hamilton Parker said they were visited by multiple news crews looking to cover the story.

Hamilton-Parker said she’s complained to the Salvation Army each year for the past four years to ask that the bell ringers move across the street to the front of the North Church. She said the incessant ringing has prompted her to wear earplugs and it’s “unfair” that the ringing should be limited to just one area of the business district.

Coolidge said Wednesday in a response she has no choice where they let them go, saying:

“We apply for a permit and that’s where they put us.”

Hamilton-Parker also researched the city’s noise ordinance banning excessive noise and said she thinks the fund-raising bell ringers qualify as noise under the ordinance. Police Capt. Mike Schwartz countered that the noise ordinance “doesn’t apply” because the city granted permission for the bell-ringing.

Pat James of the Salvation Army’s Northern New England Division in Portland, Maine, said Tuesday the ringers could be given a “dead” non-ringing bell.

Coolidge said she would feel better just finding a softer bell. Coolidge said:

“We will be sensitive. Hopefully, that will be less stressful for her.”