News

By Tim Pallesen
    
Coastal residents will be spared louder downtown music under a compromise noise ordinance that three city commissioners say they will vote to approve.
    Restaurants on Atlantic Avenue west of Federal Highway would get an extra hour of louder music on Friday and Saturday nights under the compromise.
    “We’re carving out an area where it’s OK to be a little louder,” said Assistant City Attorney Janice Rustin, after commissioners gave her directions at a June 11 workshop to rewrite the existing noise law.
    The existing law allows police to issue a violation for any noise anywhere in the city that the officer believes is unreasonably loud, excessive or unnecessary.
    The new law would make it easier to tone down late-night noise by outlawing any sound that is plainly audible from 100 feet away after 11 p.m.
    Downtown restaurant owners asked commissioners for a waiver from the 11 p.m. curfew until 1 a.m. on weekends. Residents who live near Atlantic Avenue have opposed it.   
    “We’re striving for a balance that protects the vibrancy of the downtown and also lets residents maintain their quality of life,” Community Improvement Director Lulu Butler told commissioners before the workshop.
    Mayor Cary Glickstein and Commissioners Shelly Petrolia and Angeleta Gray agreed to give restaurants and bars between Federal Highway and Swinton Avenue until midnight on weekends before the tougher noise law takes effect.
Ocean Properties, the owner of the Marriott Hotel, Boston’s on the Beach and the Sandbar, opposes establishing a downtown entertainment district with less stringent restraints.
    But commissioners said the noise law needs to be more protective for residents who live east of Federal Highway near Atlantic Avenue and Ocean Boulevard nightspots. “There are single-family homes in the marina district and east of the Intracoastal,” Glickstein said. “A one-size-fits-all solution is not workable there.”
    “The central downtown core is different from the beachside,” Commissioner Al Jacquet agreed. “We need to tailor this to protect those single-family homes.”
    Jacquet and Commissioner Adam Frankel support allowing restaurants west of Federal to play music until 1 a.m.
Commissioners might revisit what is appropriate for Ocean Properties. “A beach hotel is a tourist destination with different requirements and concerns,” Glickstein
said.