Greensboro hoping third time's the charm with noise ordinance

A flyer by Bennett College this week

Knock knock. It's your old friend, the Greensboro noise ordinance.

When the Greensboro City Council meets on Tuesday, there will be a familiar item on the agenda. Councilwomen Nancy Hoffmann, Marikay Abuzuaiter and Nancy Vaughan are bringing forward two significant revisions to the noise ordinance that are likely to pass, several council members said.

After lowering the nighttime threshold from 75 to 65 decibels and switching from A to C weighting (which is designed to pick up bass frequencies better but essentially drops the reading an additional 10 decibels) in July, the threshold level is back on the agenda for a very good reason: the current level is unenforceable. 

Opponents of the July revisions — the second round of changes since council first tackled the issue in early 2012 — argued that ambient noise would be a problem with C-weighted 65 decibel level, and that's exactly what police and council members found out. Vaughan said that readings taken outside of closed venues were crossing the 65 decibel threshold. (Council initially considered a 60 dB limit in July but Vaughan convinced a majority of members to bump it to 65 dB).

To reach an enforceable level, council will now consider raising the decibel threshold back to 75 but will retain the C-weighting system it put in place in July. But before you rejoice or panic, there's more.

Council will also consider — and likely pass — a ban on outdoor amplified noise after 11 p.m. Greene Street Club and Syn & Sky, two downtown clubs with rooftop venues, are the obvious target of the ban. Greene Street's lawyer Norman Klick and Syn & Sky owner Mike Carter could not immediately be reached for comment.

Reiterating her statements from council's discussion in July, Vaughan said club owners did not protect the initial ordinance changes that turned Greensboro into the loudest city in the state and possibly the Southeast.

"I was pretty frustrated with some of the clubs and the way they were managing noise and it just appears they can’t do it," she said. "It really didn’t seem to matter to them. It’s unfortunate that we have to come back a third time but hopefully the third time’s the charm."

Vaughan and Hoffmann said they were responding to feedback from the Greensboro Police Department about issues with amplified noise, and Mayor Robbie Perkins said this round of changes will make enforcement easier because the 11 p.m. ban will be more clear cut. 

"I think the big thing is, do we want our officers out after noise complaints or do we want them out after more serious crimes?" he said. "I’d have voted for this in the first round, we just didn’t have the majority of the council where we needed to be at that time. We’re at the end of a long road."

Hoffmann said she would be surprised if any revisions were needed after this, but added, "I never say never." 

Hoffmann said that part of the issue was that the C weighting hadn't been adequately tested before council's vote in July, but Vaughan said she and Abuzuaiter went out with police to see the C weighting in action before the last round of revisions. Yet after having the rules on the books for several weeks, Vaughan said it was clear that the ordinance wasn't workable based on more experience with the changes. 

The changes are necessary, Vaughan said, but she's disappointed the noise ordinance needs to be placed on the agenda again. So is Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson.

"I don’t know what I can make of that," Johnson said less than an hour after finding out it would come before council on Tuesday. "I think we ought to do something fair… and we need to stick with it. I just want us to get to a point where it’s a win-win and leave it there. I’m tired of it."

BREAKING: Greene Street to close rooftop dance floor

Though noise complaints come in from all over the city, the discussion about Greensboro's noise ordinance — which is back on the agenda for the city council's June 18 meeting — always seems to return to two downtown titans: Greene Street night club and developer Roy Carroll. Council has resurrected the noise ordinance debate from last year, but this time it will likely be a lot less controversial for one major reason; Greene Street is closing its rooftop dance floor.

In its place, there will be a rooftop grill akin to downtown businesses like M'Couls and Fisher's, owner Kenny Efird said today. The grill will be open for lunch and at night, Efird said, and they plan to launch it in the fall. It's not official yet — designs are still being drawn — but Greene Street owners are working with an architect and started talking to other downtown grill owners.

"We haven’t pulled the trigger on any plans or submitted it to the city or anything," Efird said. "We’ll change everything. We had to go that direction because we knew it was coming sooner or later."

Everything inside the building — the dance floor, concerts, etc — will stay the same, but the rooftop dance floor will  be closed when construction begins.

"I think that will fit our rooftop better," Efird said, adding that it will allow them to be open on days the venue is currently closed. "I don’t want to irritate people that live around me. This grill plan will work for everyone."

The city is currently taking legal action against Greene Street after it received three citations for violating the existing noise ordinance. Greene Street is counter-claiming against the city over the ordinance and its uneven enforcement, Greene Street's lawyer Norman Klick said. 

Greensboro to revisit noise ordinance

SynerG, Action Greensboro's young professionals' organization, held a meeting yesterday to discuss the noise ordinance and issues with its first year of implementation. Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann (above), City Manager Denise Turner Roth and Police Attorney Jim Clark explained what the city has done and outlined why council will revisit the issue at its June 18 meeting. 

Though the ordinance is citywide, discussions yesterday (and last year when the ordinance was revised) focused on the battle between downtown clubs — namely Greene Street — and downtown residents — namely Roy Carroll and the inhabitants of his Center Pointe condos. 

Kurt Collins, below left, said yesterday that he moved out of downtown because of excessive noise. Clark said that during the noise ordinance debacle last year the city mostly heard from club owners and their supporters but that residents remained mostly silent on the issue. That has changed in the past year, he said, as more downtown residents have contacted the city. 

The number of noise complaints in Greensboro has dropped from 5,195 to 4,726 since the ordinance's implementation, but the number of citations has almost doubled even though the city delayed enforcement during an initial trial period. The number of citations to nightclubs only rose slightly, from eight to 12, though Greene Street was cited three times.

We will have more detailed reporting on the noise ordinance coming soon. Stay posted!

Noise ordinance discussion postponed, Hoffmann explains

A proposed change to Greensboro's noise ordinance that would make the decibel levels lower (and thereby stricter) was removed from city council's agenda last night after it met with opposition from some members prior to the meeting. District 4 Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann, who had suggested a decreased threshold from 75 to 65 decibels after 11 p.m., said she asked for the item to be pulled but said it may still need to be revisited.

"I think that it’s an issue that we need to reconsider but we may need a little time to work through that," Hoffmann said, adding that some council members liked the ordinance as is while others may be open to revisiting it. "The police chief now is actually looking at some better or more sensitive equipment that can be used."

 Changes to the city's noise ordinance early last year were controversial and was met with fierce opposition from club owners, patrons and other residents. The ordinance affects the city as a whole but the discussion was focused on a rift between downtown clubs and residents, with developer Roy Carroll as the face of those pushing for a stricter ordinance. Carroll, who built Center Pointe on North Elm Street and lives in the building, later said he would back candidates that supported his point of view in the fall 2013 city council elections.

Hoffmann said the issue had been framed as a battle between Carroll — who leaned heavily on the police department and city council before it was put on council's agenda — and Greene Street Club, but that she had received calls from residents throughout the city, including in her district. One even complained about noise from the Greensboro Coliseum, she said, which is exempt from the ordinance. Hoffmann, whose district does not include downtown, said she has heard from several downtown residents who are still unsatisfied with the ordinance.

"In terms of the downtown business area, you have a number of constituencies," Hoffmann said. "What you’re always trying to do is to get to the center so that no group or no constituency is unfavorably or negatively impacted. There’s always lots to learn, you’re always trying to get to the best possible situation and solution to an issue or problem. I think that’s where we hope to get to at some point in time."

Hoffmann said there may be ongoing antagonism between Center Pointe and Greene Street, but said the current ordinance has a decibel threshold that is higher than Greensboro's peer cities, such as Greenville, SC or Raleigh, and that the current method of measuring noise may not adequately address the booming bass tones in some music. Hoffmann said the ordinance may be addressed in the coming months.

Hoffmann: Lower the noise ordinance threshold

According to this city document, which "Greensboro Citizens Against Proposed Noise Ordinance" posted on Facebook an hour ago, District 4 City Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann is pushing for a stricter noise ordinance in mixed use areas. 

Hoffmann's proposal, according to the document, is to reduce the decibel threshold from 75 to 65 after 11 p.m. in mixed use areas. When the noise ordinance was brought up early last year it was met with fierce community opposition, and Hoffmann was one of several council members who was more willing to meet with ordinance opponents. 

The Greensboro City Council agenda item is listed for council's meeting on Tuesday (Jan. 15). The noise ordinance impacts the entire city, but a YES! Weekly public information request revealed that the source of the issue was developer Roy Carroll and his complaints about Greene Street Club downtown. The ordinance changes were originally brought forward by Mayor Robbie Perkins, who lives in Carroll's Center Pointe condos downtown.

 Club owners have recently been frustrated by attempts to create an entertainment security ordinance that they say would unfairly target clubs that did not have histories of security issues or problems with violence. A three member council subcommittee, spearheaded by District 3 Councilman Zack Matheny is looking into the security ordinance. The noise ordinance has mostly been off the public radar since the summer. 

No complaints on noise ordinance, police say

Along with several graphs supplied to council, Police Chief Ken Miller said there haven't been any complaints with the new noise ordinance. Council instructed the police to monitor the implementation of the ordinance for 60 days without issuing fines and to report back. The new noise ordinance went into effect July 15, and according to Miller, only three of the 54 tickets issued during the 60 days were to entertainment venues, the anticipated target of most complaints. Here is some of the content of his report to council in today's IFYI report. I assume the "female resident" lives in Center Pointe, since residents there (namely developer Roy Carroll and Teresa Yon) were behind the complaints aimed at Greene Street Club which is specifically named.

Center Pointe's comical mistake

While it is likely an accident, it's hard not to laugh at the most glaring error in the downtown map provided on Center Pointe's website: Greene Street simply doesn't exist. The map has a handful of mistakes, but considering the problem some Center Pointe residents, most notably developer and resident Roy Carroll, have with Greene Street Club around the noise ordinance, I burst out laughing when I saw Eugene Street had been moved a block east and replaced the entire street.