Seattle street preachers say nothing can silence their amplified message

Christian preachers have long been a staple outside Seattle’s sports stadiums, often spreading the gospel with the help of megaphones. Many fans say the volume is too loud, but it’s unclear if anything can silence the preachers.

As the Mariners inched closer to a playoff berth and division title last week, tens of thousands of baseball fans flooded Seattle’s ballpark.

That meant a lot of ears to reach for Ron Cardiel.

Cardiel is one of the regular street preachers who stations himself outside stadiums before games begin. Just before first pitch, Cardiel and two other preachers, Thomas and Justin Symons, met up to share how the night went.

The three were giddy.

Not because of anything inside the stadium, but because of the large crowds filling the streets in SoDo.

“Oh, it was glorious tonight, people coming from all over,” Cardiel said.

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“Really good, and there’s that concert over there,” said Justin, pointing to the nearby WAMU Theater.

“Oh, really? And you went over there?” Cardiel asked Thomas, “That’s great you went over there. Good work.”

An important ballgame next door to a concert meant the preachers got to blare their message to even more people than usual.

“We don’t know what the concert was, doesn’t matter. We stumble into stuff,” Cardiel said. “We see people standing in a line and we share the gospel with them. We invade them.”

The three preachers, with their tall signs and loud megaphones, have become part of the scenery at games and large events in Seattle. Cardiel said for the past 13 years, he’s preached at well over half of the Mariners' home games.

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Most people pass Cardiel and the others without interacting. But it’s those megaphones that have irked fans for years. The ball club is now polling fans about how their game experience has been affected by “amplified sound” outside the ballpark.

"The volume is loud. They're barking at you,” said Nicole Ritson before a recent game. Ritson said she’d like to see more musicians and buskers outside the ballpark, but the sound of the megaphones was too overpowering.

One street musician who has long shared the sidewalk with the preachers is Chris Anderson, better known online as the Pike Street Drummer.

Anderson is the center of the party when the Mariners win at home. He plays his drums outside the stadium with fans screaming out the lyrics to pop songs.

He said it is tough competing with the preachers over noise, but he does not want to see any new rules limiting loud speakers.

“That’s a tricky one,” Anderson said as he set up his drum kit. “If the fans do go with that initiative, that cancels me out as well, because I got an amplifier.”

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So far the team has not said if they might crack down on the loud speakers. The city’s noise ordinance for the commercial area is 60 decibels. Cardiel, the other preachers, and Anderson with his drums are all way above that. It’s unclear how the city could enforce a noise cap on the public sidewalk.

“I would take that poll and say, ‘Everybody except for that Pike Street Drummer guy,'” Anderson said.

Cardiel said all this attention about the loud noise is an excuse to silence his message. He said he doesn’t try to hurt peoples’ ears and he only uses a loud speaker to be heard by as many people as possible.

“If we're praised for being the loudest fans in America for a sports team,” he said, “why the hypocrisy when we’re talking about God?”

He also disputed news reports about his speaker exceeding 110 decibels and said different meters will say different things.

Not everyone is bothered to hear Cardiel’s booming voice. Before walking into a game last week, Leroy Davis gave Cardiel a fist bump.

"No problem at all,” Davis said. “Hey, First Amendment, freedom of speech, you can do whatever you want to do. He's not bothering nobody. So I love it."

Shortly after, a police officer asked Cardiel to at least face his megaphone away from the line of people, which he did.

There are only a few more baseball games in Seattle during the playoffs, when the ballpark will be sold out.

When fans return next spring, it could sound a little different outside.

Cardiel said even if the Mariners or city implements a noise ban, he and the others will still show up.

“We’ll be here for sure,” he said, “God willing.”