A luxury Waiheke Island wine company has been found guilty of breaching noise limits following a protracted Auckland Council prosecution and could now be fined up to $600,000. Cable Bay Wine tried to argue an acoustic expert who captured excessive noise readings did so on the vineyard’s own land and was therefore trespassing, so the evidence should be thrown out. However a judge dismissed the argument and upheld the charge, ruling the offence was “serious” in terms of effects on the vineyard’s neighbours and the environment.
The decision relates to an earlier case in which Cable Bay Wine was acquitted after successfully blaming excessive noise readings at the vineyard on “chirping crickets” and ambient noise from passing aircraft..
