A new report commissioned by the New Orleans City Council on how best to revise the city's noise ordinance was challenged as too lenient by several residents who spoke Monday at a meeting of the council's Housing and Human Needs Committee. On the other side, members of the local music community urged the council to tread lightly and respect...
A new report commissioned by the New Orleans City Council on how best to revise the city's noise ordinance was challenged as too lenient by several residents who spoke Monday at a meeting of the council's Housing and Human Needs Committee. On the other side, members of the local music community urged the council to tread lightly and respect the city's cultural heritage.
The report by David Woolworth, a nationally known expert on sound with Oxford Acoustics based in Oxford, Miss., proposed a host of changes, such as appointing a dedicated "sound officer" to enforce regulations, changing violations from criminal to civil offenses, setting a firm sound level cap for Bourbon Street, curbing the irresponsible use of amplification devices, creating a direct phone line or website to track complaints, and expanding the tourism footprint of New Orleans to relieve the pressure on the French Quarter.
Councilwoman Kristin Gisleson Palmer has been working on revising the ordinance since 2010, following police crackdowns on brass bands playing on Bourbon Street. Palmer at first proposed revamping the entire noise ordinance, but she abandoned that plan in favor of amending the current law after members of the business and music communities opposed a preliminary revision as too restrictive.
The noise ordinance was last updated in 2012, when the council approved an amendment regulating the placement of loudspeakers in the French Quarter and the Central Business District.
Many of the speakers at Monday's meeting praised large sections of Woolworth's study, commissioned in 2011 and released this week, but some said it focused too much on the concerns of business owners rather than residents.
Lorelei Cropley, a resident of Faubourg Marigny, said Woolworth's proposal to give music clubs violating the ordinance warnings prior to issuing citations would lead to increased noise levels. "Most of our issues with the current situation have always stemmed from the fact that the existing noise law simply isn't enforced," Cropley said.
Arno Bommer, a sound consultant with CSTI Acoustics in Houston who has been working with several neighborhood groups, took issue with the manner in which Woolworth proposed to set noise levels.
Woolworth suggested that the city create a hard limit, possibly 91 decibels, in hot spots like Bourbon Street instead of the current limit of 10 decibels above the ambient, or surrounding, sound level. He argued that the current method is too confusing, but Bommer called the proposed increase "dramatic" and unreasonably high."
Woolworth's proposal to return enforcement of the noise ordinance from the New Orleans Police Department to the city's Health Department, which handled it prior to 1986, was more favorably received.
Several musicians and music advocates spoke in defense of their industry, stressing the role brass bands and "street music" play in giving young people a positive path to follow when many of their friends are getting caught up in violence and drugs.
"It's because of the music and their access to it that is deterring violence in youth, and taking away or compromising that in any way would be detrimental to the community at large," said attorney Ashlye Keaton.
The majority of resident complaints focused on the noise level on Bourbon Street, which jazz musician and French Quarter resident Tim Laughlin called an "assault on all five senses. I remember going as a kid in the late '60s and there was a mystique about the French Quarter, what was behind the walls, what was behind the shutters. We lost that mystique. Everything is in your face. Now we have clubs battling it out on Bourbon Street trying to out-loud each other."
Robert Watters, a Bourbon Street club operator and chairman of the French Quarter Management District, called the report a great starting point but said revisions to the existing ordinance must be done in "measured doses."
"Any change needs to respect the cultural traditions that we have in New Orleans and respect the fact that the music industry in New Orleans has a phenomenal cultural impact," Watters said. "We have a culturally authentic musical experience. Other cities cannot create that. That is something we have grown for hundreds of years and it is very easy to destroy. It would only take a few ill-thought ordinance changes done in haste to harm the industry."
Palmer said the council will continue to collect public comment on Woolworth's report as part of the process of revising the sound ordinance.