Planners Ponder Festival Noise

In a discussion of festival noise Thursday, Planning Board members and staff said the racket disrupted a funeral and a block association meeting, both several streets away. When a block association member called police headquarters to lodge a complaint, officers at the festival could not be reached by cell phone due to the volume of amplified sound.

Almost all the board members reported being able to hear the noise in their homes over the weekend, some more than a mile away from the East Front Street festival site. Planning Director Bill Nierstedt said the City Council has expressed concerns over festival noise and even though it is not strictly a land use issue, the board will send a letter to the governing body on the matter.

The board reviewed a  section of the Municipal Code (reported by Plaintalker here) on noise and found it outdated and ambiguous. Among suggestions to improve it, Nierstedt suggested use of a decibel meter to measure the sound level. Board member Ron Scott Bey said event permits might need noise rules attached and those who enforce the rules need to know what they are.

Board member Horace Baldwin said people at the funeral first thought there was a vehicle outside with loud music. He said this summer was the first time he was hearing music from the downtown festivals in his home, near the Scotch Plains border.

"Live entertainment is getting out of hand,"' he said, calling for restrictions.

Others said music does not seem to carry the same way from events in Cedar Brook Park, but sound from the downtown festivals may be reverberating off buildings. Board member William Toth said the downtown might not be the right place for such festivals.

The downtown festivals began in 2009, with nightclub owner Edison Garcia's two-day September celebration of Central American Independence from noon to 7 p.m. in parking lots 8 and 8A. In 2010, he added a two-day celebration for July Fourth. By 2011, festival hours expanded to close at 11 p.m..

Another nightclub owner signed up for the September weekend in 2012 before Garcia did. The conflict culminated in a dual festival in city parking lots on both sides of Watchung Avenue. This year, Garcia had his July festival and got bumped in September to the first weekend plus the preceding Friday night. The Maree Group got city permission for an El Salvadoran festival in August and for the Central American Independence on Sept. 13, 14 and 15, though the group's proposed rodeo did not get approval.

The next test of residents' patience with amplified sound will come this weekend with a "Latin Rides" car show downtown.

The New Jersey DEP has a model noise ordinance that covers everything from snow blowers to boom boxes, with specific decibel measurements verified by "noise control officers." Considerations here might be the cost of decibel meters and whether a municipality wants to deploy officers for such enforcement.

Offensive noise can be anything from a "talking" bus that announces every turn, to a squawking bird such as a macaw (example here - we have one on Block 832). Scott Bey said a developer wants to have an outdoor amphitheater downtown, so it is a good idea to rewrite the current ordinance.

Noise complaints have already led the council to demand sound system cutoffs at 9 p.m. and festival closings by 10 p.m., instead of 11 p.m. for both. To let your City Council representatives know your concerns about festival noise, see contact information here.

--Bernice

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