All American Speedway
California
A city sued a racetrack it didn't even own, and a judge declared the place a public nuisance.
In 1971 the city of Roseville took its neighborhood racetrack to court over noise. The odd part is that the city didn't own the track. Placer County did. Roseville sued anyway, calling the speedway a public nuisance. A Nevada County judge, Harold Wolters, heard the case and in April of 1972 ruled that the track was no nuisance at all. Then he read the case again. That December he reversed himself and barred the promoters from holding races until they met noise limits set by the court. The promoters tried a few workarounds first, and attendance fell. Finally, in 1973, mufflers were made mandatory on the cars, over the objections of promoter Larry Burton. That same year his partner Bruno Romani walked away from the business to recover from a heart attack, leaving Burton alone with a quieter racetrack.
This is the first of 3 parts. The rest runs about 3 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.
In 1971, a lawsuit was filed by the city of Roseville against AAS for violating its city ordinances regarding noise despite the track being owned by the county instead of the city, calling the track a "public nuisance".
Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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