Council Member Sally Clark won a round against the music and club
industry Monday, December 17, passing legislation that would impose
steep fines ($1,000 for the first violation, $2,000 for the second and
subsequent violations) on bars and clubs any time they play music that
is audible to “a person of normal hearing” inside a nearby residence
after 10:00 p.m. Clark says the city will come up with an objective
standard, eliminating the possibility of arbitrary enforcement;
however, that standard will be developed by the city’s Department of
Planning and Development, not the council, meaning that there probably
won’t be any public hearings on
the new definition.
Clubs can get out of the fine by installing improvements that muffle
sound (as Clark put it at Monday’s meeting, “It’s really our goal that
nobody gets fined”), but those improvements are expensive, and
installing sound absorbers is no guarantee that no one will
complain—prompting yet another fine. Meanwhile, despite Clark’s
assertion that developers “need to be cognizant that the building
standards for new structures that go up take noise into account,” the
ordinance places no burden whatsoever on developers to install
improvements such as double-paned windows and thick walls, which could
minimize
noise transmission. 