Amenia Town Board turns attention to noise ordinance

AMENIA — Another noise complaint from a resident has once again turned the Amenia Town Board’s attention toward its noise ordinance.

Councilman Mike DeLango brought up an email received from a Wassaic resident. The resident complained about music coming from an outdoor live performance at the Lantern Inn, a restaurant in the center of the hamlet, through the wee hours of the night.

Given the nature of the complaint — a noise disturbance in an area that is both residential and commercial — the board briefly discussed ways at its meeting on Thursday, Sept. 1, in which the issue can be addressed.

“I’m all for businesses, I’m all for live music and stuff like that, but … it might be a good idea to look into the noise ordinance law,” DeLango said. “We’ve had a lot of issues with the noise ordinance law right now between cutting wood and shooting, but I do think there should be something that goes around to the local businesses that do live entertainment — it’s all about living in peace and harmony together.”

The town’s code, as it stands, contains certain regulations to prevent noise disturbances. But some on the board say the provisions are vague, causing a problem when interpreting what is a clear violation.

Town Board attorney Denise Fitzpatrick weighed in, saying the board ought look into revising the law.

The vagueness of the noise ordinance, she said, has caused problems for courts in the past when it comes to enforcement.

In the town of Poughkeepsie, for example, “the noise law was set aside as being unconstitutional, because the problem is if you’re not defining where the level is, who is the ‘reasonable person’ to determine what’s ‘unreasonably loud?’” asked the attorney.

“There have been problems with the courts in enforcing the law, because they feel it’s only reasonable for a person to know ahead of time what’s too loud. How does a person know how to not violate the law if you don’t know what’s too loud?” she added.

One way of making the law more specific would be to determine how many decibels is considered too loud. But as many on the board questioned, who is to determine that?

“I’m half deaf, so something that is loud to you guys may not be that loud to me,” DeLango said, suggesting that a specific law be drafted for businesses like restaurants, bars and party venues in commercial/residential zones.

The law, he said, could even be drafted separately from the noise ordinance and call for businesses to keep it quiet after certain hours of the night, that way “it doesn’t matter if it’s two decibels or 20 decibels or a 100 decibels. It’s more cut and dry, and we don’t have to buy a measure machine to find out how many decibels the noise is at,” DeLango said.

However, the Town Board attorney said such laws should not be broken apart from the town code.

“It’s a noise issue. It has to be in your noise law. It’s the appropriate place for it,” said Fitzpatrick.

All board members present agreed to look over the possibility of amending the current noise ordinance.