(A) For the purpose of this chapter, the following definitions shall apply unless the context clearly indicates or requires a different meaning.
NUISANCE. Any of the following:
(a) Activity which arises from unreasonable, unwarranted, or unlawful use by a person of his or her own property, working obstruction or injury to the right of another, or to the public, and producing such material annoyance, inconvenience, and discomfort that will presume resulting damage;
(b) Everything that endangers life or health, gives offense to senses, or obstructs reasonable and comfortable use of property;
(c) The class of wrongs that arise from the unreasonable, unwarrantable, or unlawful use by a person of his or her own property, either real or personal, or from his or her own improper or unlawful personal conduct, working an obstruction of or injury to the right of another or of the public, and producing such material annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort, or hurt, that the law will presume resulting damage; or
(d) The term comprehends interference with an owner’s reasonable use and enjoyment of his or her property by means of smoke, odors, noise, or vibration, obstruction of private easements and rights of support, interference with public rights, such as free passage along streams and highways, enjoyment of public parks and places of recreation, and, in addition, activities and structures prohibited as statutory NUISANCES.
PUBLIC NUISANCE. A nuisance annoying that part of the public as necessarily comes in contact with it or which is prejudicial to the general public. It has also been stated that whatever obstructs the free use of property, interfering with the comfortable enjoyment of life and property by an entire community or neighborhood, is a PUBLIC NUISANCE. It may also be an unreasonable interference with a right, common to the general public; it is behavior which unreasonably interferes with the health, safety, peace, comfort, or convenience of the general community.
(B) Any person violating any of the provisions of this subchapter shall be guilty of a code violation. Each day a violation of this subchapter is committed or permitted to continue shall constitute a separate offense. The penalty for the offense shall be a fine for each day a person shall so fail, refuse, or neglect to abate the nuisance, but in no case shall the aggregate of these fines exceed $25,000.
(C) After any person shall have been convicted of erecting, causing, keeping, continuing, or maintaining any public nuisance, the court may make it a part of the judgment that the nuisance be abated at the cost of the person convicted.
(1987 Code, § 6-142) (Ord. 10, 1990, passed 3-26-1990) Penalty, see § 10.99