An ear for an ear? Stereo blasters learn to change their tune
--Robert Weller
The Associated Press

FORT LUPTON, Colo. - They don't take requests at this after-hours club and there's definitely no karaoke. The DJ is a police officer, and he's ready to bounce anyone who dances or talks.

Employing something like the aversion therapy in the movie "A Clockwork Orange," Municipal Judge Paul Sacco requires people convicted of violating the city's noise ordinance to listen to music they don't like.

The noise scofflaws - most of whom got in trouble for playing their stereos too loud - gather once a month, on a weekend night, to listen to court-selected songs. The offenders are mostly young, so there is a heavy dose of lounge music, including Wayne Newton and Dean Martin, plus some Navajo flute music, bagpipes and John Denver songs.

During the most recent session, the group of seven heard one of the judge's own jazz compositions, "Sleepin' in My Car."
Seventeen-year-old David Mascarenas was apparently scared straight. "I'm not going to jam no more," he said. "I took my stereo out already. I don't want to be hassled no more."

Court coordinator Patrice Redearth, who suggested the one-hour music treatment, said she got her first playlist by asking her 17-year-old "what the kids would hate." The worst selection was the "Barney" theme song, said Ryan Bowles, 21, adding, "If you laugh they cite you for contempt." The DJ policeman, Joe Morales, said there's something annoying for everyone, and it works. He recalled having problems "with one kid three or four times. He came here once and he hasn't been back."

A requiem might have been the most appropriate choice for the most recent session, Feb. 26. It certainly looked like a funeral. One teen wore a shirt that read, "I hate this town." "If they fall asleep, their eyes will be pried open," said clerk Patrice Redearth, in a joking reference to "A Clockwork Orange," in which a gang member involved in a rape is forced to watching sickening videos, his eyes pinned open, while listening to Beethoven, his favorite composer.

Sacco's program debuted Dec. 5 in this town of 5,200 people 30 miles north of Denver. The sessions are held in City Hall. Most of the offenders are rap-loving teens. But not all. "There was a guy who was 45 who got a ticket for listening to Bob Seger," the judge said.
Sacco, who is 45 himself and has been playing blues guitar since he was 10, said the point he is trying to make is that "it's wrong to impose your music or style on someone else."

"You've got guys going around now with 15-inch speakers in a small car with a 1,000-watt amplifier," the judge said. "Maybe the ordinance will help them save their ears."