Several of us had a productive meeting with the owner of Bowstring, Council members Corey Branch and Christina Jones, the associate city attorney, city attorney, and assistant city manager on Tuesday. Our focus was to educate all parties about the ways in which a decibel-only requirement for amplified music will likely still result in our being able to hear Bowstring bands at audible levels from many different points within our neighborhood.

The Council voted on the ordinance later that day which passed and has an implementation date of January 1, I believe. An article is here.

The Council also voted to approve hiring a sound engineer to advise on noise mitigation approaches for Bowstring and other establishments. Corey Branch noted that since Bowstring has known noise complaints they will have to mitigate the issues to get a sound permit which would allow them to amplify noise to a level above the 70 decibel limit in the newly approved ordinance. We expect to be able to hear music played at 70 decibels at the source but have committed to working with Bowstring and City staff to understand the impact of different decibel levels and mitigation approaches on how and where we hear music in the neighborhood. We will keep you posted as we know more about a plan for that and will need your help. 

Corey Branch emphasized that Raleigh is only on its third iteration of a noise ordinance and that for other cities many more iterations have been required before getting to one that feels like the right balance. I believe the Council expects this will not be Raleigh's last iteration. 

I have heard neighbors say that they have found Council members to be unresponsive. I am personally willing to take the efforts of Corey Branch (who represents our district) and Christina Jones (who represents the district that Bowstring is in) at face value for now and work with them to try to address our current issues as well as inform future iterations of the noise ordinance. 

FYI, Mark, I will send this same update to the main listserv and invite anyone who wants to be part of this effort to join this action listserv.

Krista

Midwood & Dennis