Propane Cannons in vineyards

[O.W.]

Does anyone know who is firing propane cannons in Sebastopol to scare off the birds from the wine grapes instead of covering? There's another complaint in the PD again today. Does the vineyard owners feel entitled to disrupt entire neighborhoods? Is there a noise ordinance that can be enforced or in the least a nuisance ordinance?
https://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinion/6006613-181/sundays-letters-to-the-editor
The cannons roar

EDITOR: My
neighborhood in Sebastopol has to endure around 13 hours each day of listening
to propane cannons used to keep birds from eating grapes in local vineyards.
They go off at a rate of 11-20 booms per minute. It sounds like fireworks or a
shotgun depending on where the cannon is firing. My dog trembles throughout the
day and will no longer go for a walk.

I am told this noise pollution will go on till harvest, which probably happens in late
September.

I have lived in this neighborhood for 29 years, and this is the first year for this noise coming
from the vineyards.

Part of being a good neighbor is not assaulting them with bird cannon noise 13 hours a day. What
happened to netting the grapes? In the quest for more profit I can surmise that
netting is labor intensive, but isn’t the good will of the community more
important? I implore the vineyards that are using these devices to rethink it.
Spend a day in my backyard and our neighborhood and you will understand what an
intrusion it is.

NANCY
MARTIN
Sebastopol

And then
Monday's letter to the editor:https://www.pressdemocrat.com/opinio...-to-the-editor

Booming bird bombs

EDITOR: Are we
under attack? For the past week or so, we’ve been asking one another at our
house in Sebastopol, “Did you hear that?” It’s the sound of distant explosions:
boom, boom, boom. Finally we realized, after observing plump ripening wine
grapes in nearby vineyards that the boom booms are for the birds. You got that
right. Boom, booms, part of our Wine Country lifestyle.

LARRY
CHIARONI

Sebastopol