At Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, in the midst of a contested amendment to the city’s noise ordinance, one thing was agreed upon: Charlottesville’s music scene is vibrant, unique and in need of protection.
Musicians, restaurateurs and venue owners vocally opposed two proposed amendments that would lower the evening noise level to 55 decibels citywide or in specific neighborhoods. Peter Castiglione, owner of Maya on West Main Street, called the proposals “completely unrealistic.”
The first amendment would limit amplified sound between 11pm and 6am in the Neighborhood Commercial Corridor district to 55 decibels, while leaving the current 75-decibel limit intact for non-residential areas. The second amendment—far more sweeping, and discounted by Council—would limit sound to 55 decibels in all districts aside from the Downtown Business District—a.k.a., the Downtown Mall.
Local musician Bennie Dodd told Council that if the decreased decibel level is approved, “it’s going to affect all of Charlottesville.
“I probably won’t have a job,” he said.
The current noise ordinance caps decibel levels at 75 after 11pm in the Neighborhood Commercial Corridor district, which includes Belmont and Fontaine. However, many Belmont residents deemed 75 decibels too loud, and both the Belmont-Carlton Neighborhood Association and Jim Tolbert, director of the city’s Neighborhood Development Services, have spoken in favor of lowering it.
Although Council did not vote on the matter on Tuesday and will pick up the matter at a later date, Councilor David Brown proposed that 60 decibels be the new limit in both Belmont and Fontaine, and was seconded by Councilor Satyendra Huja.
Brown told Council he agreed that the situation was brought about by one business in one neighborhood—a reference to Bel Rio in Belmont. “I think it’s really important that we don’t overreact and affect other businesses in other neighborhoods,” he said. Fellow Councilor Kristin Szakos thought otherwise. “We definitely do have other neighborhoods where this is an issue,” she told Council. “I don’t see any reasons to stop at Belmont.”
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Peter Castiglione, owner of Maya, spoke out against lowering the noise ordinance, including a 60-decibel compromise proposed by Councilor David Brown. “What they have on the books now is 75 and it’s already low, but I think we have established over the last 18 months that that is a workable solution,” said Castiglione.
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However, the new proposed limit wasn’t warmly welcomed.
“Fifty-five decibels, 60 decibels, 65 decibels, that’s all completely unrealistic,” Castiglione told C-VILLE. “What they have on the books now is 75 and it’s already low, but I think we have established over the last 18 months that that is a workable solution.”
For Castiglione, one of the problems with the ordinance is repercussion. “Once they do it for one neighborhood, they are setting a precedent and that just means that some other neighborhood…is going to want the same thing to happen,” he says.
Gary Hagar, co-owner of Durty Nelly’s in Fontaine, the other neighborhood that would be affected by a lower limit in the Neighborhood Commercial Corridor, said that lowering the decibel level is not the answer. “I think that live music is definitely an asset in Charlottesville,” he told C-VILLE.
Longtime WTJU General Manager and Woolen Mills resident Chuck Taylor told C-VILLE that he could appreciate the issue “from a neighborhood point of view, because we certainly have experienced some of that here.
“But by the same token, I always lean towards the music a little bit stronger,” said Taylor.
Castiglione also urged Council to consider the “inherent inequality” of the ordinance that exempts the Downtown Mall.
“This is the most hypocritical part of the entire situation,” he says. “I don’t understand how the Downtown Mall could be exempt and Market Street, West Main Street and the Corner can’t be. It’s like the tax dollars that they collect on the Mall have magic dust in them.”
Ultimately, Castiglione, like others present at the meeting, says the best solution to the problem is to have business owners and residents sit down and talk it out.
“Everybody wants to work together on this. I want the residents to be happy,” he says. “What we don’t need is the city coming in with an absurd ordinance with an unrealistic decibel level even if they only apply it to Belmont, because it will just carry across from one neighborhood to the next.”
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