Opera turns cacophony in the US as convenient stores classical music to shoo the homeless

California: Owners of the popular convenience store chain 7-Eleven in the US have found a musical way to drive away homeless people who take shelter in front of their outlets.

Some 7-Eleven stores in Texas and California have been blasting classical music, such as the opera, to shoo away homeless people from camping out at the entrance of their stores.

A 7-Eleven owner said that the goal is to deter homeless individuals from being there and harassing customers. While some customers appreciate the music, others are annoyed by it.

Jagat Patel, a store owner admitted that even though a number of officials have received noise complaints, no one from the Austin Police Department has shown up to warn them. He also said that he is not aware of the decibel level falls within city limits, but he is planning to lower the volume.

Women, children afraid to come to stores

Patel has flagged concerns about the safety of his customers.

He told Fox 7, “Especially a lot of my female customers and my young customers are scared to come here because there are people constantly hanging out in the parking lot soliciting for money.”

He further claims that he had to employ professionals to clean up needles and that workers nearby have been attacked by homeless people in the past.

Joe Miranda, a worker from a nearby area, said, “I have to carry this big old knife with me just to defend myself, it’s sad that you have to do that.”

Patel got the idea of using music from other store owners around him. “Studies have shown that classical music is annoying. Opera is annoying, and I’m assuming they are correct because it’s working,” he said.

The method is proving to be effective as store owners have started to notice a difference.

“Now since they’ve had this music going on, we have less traffic down with the homeless out here,” Miranda said.

“It’s helping out, it’s not annoying to us because it doesn’t bother us, but it bothers probably them because they’re doing drugs,” he added.

Some find the music ‘obnoxious’

There are, however, some customers who think this is not the best way of driving away homeless people and say that the music is “annoying” and “obnoxious”.

“I believe, just talk to them, and ask them not to hang around, or not to live around, whatever, I think that’s the best solution,” said a person who lives nearby.

The resident has started going to another 7-Eleven as he couldn’t stand the classical music.

He said, “This music is not very good, it’s loud, it’s obnoxious to me, I don’t like it, you can hear it a long ways off, it’s very disturbing.”

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