Nitebob wrote
1. Should the organisers of such an event not canvas the neighbourhood and prepare them for the event, basically get permission to play loud music? I mean it is for a good cause, and only one night per year.
That may not be necessary. What is necessary (certainly in Jhb) is that they get the requisite pieces of paper beforehand. For about three years there were regular concerts at Emmarentia Dam, which is smack in the middle of suburban Johannesburg. The racket was terrific. I remember the night that Enrique Iglesias played there. Our house was over a Km as the crow flies from the stage and we couldn't hear the TV with the volume turned all the way up. Elton John was not a whole lot quieter.
The organisers of these shows cleared everything with the City beforehand (down to temporary liquor licences) and there wasn't a whole lot that anybody could do about it. Problems were not just around noise - it meant restricted or no access to a popular public park on the show weekends, huge increases in traffic, lots of drunk people in a party mood walking down your street after the show to get to their cars, lots of litter...
I'm not recommending this approach, but it can be done. I think the authorities have to balance lots of things, and as with many other things they have to rule on, you can't cancel everything just because one stick-in-the-mud says "no". I think that prior negotiation with residents can be a good policy and can, if handled really well with sincerity on both sides, actually build bridges.
Problems really begin with somebody just asserts their right to rock and roll without bothering to consult with anybody at all.
2. (More of a statement really) Isn't it ironic that the complainant might one day knock on the door of CANSA and pray for the research he set back by complaining? Hasn't everybody lost someone to the big C?
There's a difference between denying CANSA the right to hold fund raising functions and saying "no" to a rock concert close to your own back yard about which you were not consulted. Especially if the music is going to go on all through the night and provide a backdrop to your breakfast.
