Playgrounds to be protected from noise lawsuits - Berlin

After several court cases over playground noise, the Berlin city government is planning to thwart crotchety complainers with a ban on lawsuits against noise disturbances by children, daily Berliner Zeitung reported on Tuesday.

"Noise from playing children is a socially appropriate manifestation of young life and fundamentally tolerable in interest of the preservation of their developmental possibilities," according to the text of Social Democrats' change to the city's emission control law.

The amendment, expected to be passed by the city parliament this fall, is meant to prevent the inclusion of children's noise with "traffic noise and jackhammers," SPD spokesperson for youth and family issues Sandra Scheeres told the paper.

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Golf clap.

the little monsters should be seen and not heard. or maybe not even seen. keep them in the cellar until they're old enough to start working and paying taxes.

Bill! One country over, buddy. Same language, different country.

ha! over in austria they don't even let them out to work!

This is why I chain my kids to the refridgerator. They get quality time at least three times a day... more on the weekend when I need snacks!!!

I wonder how easy it is to file a noise complaint lawsuit. If you can win against a day care, you can surely win against a church bell.

I've often wondered how the police would react if I even called them up to complain about the racket coming from down the block without telling them I'm complaining about a church. I've never tried it though, because it overlaps with my game of asking myself, "What would it take to get myself deported?"

I'm glad we have hardly any kids in your neighbourhood.

While I was on a City Council in the US, we twice had to deal with complaints by people who moved in next to an existing primary school (Grundschule) , and then complained about noise from the children playing during recess.
"What part of living next to a school with little kids did you not understand?"
WWM

and meanwhile SO36 is threatened because ONE new resident in the building is upset that Oranienstrasse doesn't sound like Hüttenweg...

Can someone PLEASE tell me how people can moan about the noise of kids playing and yet not be bothered by the ear-screaming siren of a fire truck returnign to base at 3am?

The noise of a fire truck usually finishes within seconds.

Life is around 70 years and kids playing is one of the most normal things in the world. A few people here should grow down and up rather than acting like selfish neo capitalist me me me me kids. Should children be locked up with a Playstation? If you don't like the basics of humanity then just go. Just go of push for a motion in the Bundestag to have kids gagged.

No, of course not. It's in the nature of children to be noisy and to frolic about. But that doesn't mean to say that everyone around has to enjoy it. In fact most people don't. The majority of parents are happy when their kids are quiet.

The majority of people in their right minds wouldn't move to one of the areas of Berlin with the highest birth rates in Europe and complain about the noise kids make. It is the same very odd sub humans who moved to Kollwitz Platz and complain about the weekly market, or music. Come on folks we shop, eat, reproduce, sleep, work and seek a bit of entertainment, it's called life... city life.