The Noise Gestapo Strikes Again!

[songsmith]

Oh, and I should mention... If you do get some airtime, be cordial (nice) and respect the fact that the media is doing THEIR job. If the Establishment sees us as too angry, we will be labelled as hoodlums. (You know some conservative people see us musicians as violent sex-addicted drug-abusers, right?) AND DON'T DROP THE F-BOMB OR OTHER "OBSCENE" WORDS. You might seem cool to a few, but you'd hurt the many.
Now go call talk radio, e-mail the editor of the Mirror, and the TV stations are in the phone book.----->JMS

[Jim Price]

I can do what I can, but as Tonefight suggested, I do have a lot on the table right now (especially this week!) and can't guarantee that I can spearhead this movement 24-7. Any and all help to organize this effort is much needed and appreciated! And if anyone else wants to step forward and take the lead on this, I'll be glad to help in any way I can!

Scheduling a meeting to organize the effort is a good idea; I'm not too available this week due to job duties, probably early next week would work better.

I agree too that we do need to be careful to put our best professional face on this effort. People do have their image of what "musicians" are in this town, and anything that feeds that negative stereotype doesn't help our cause. I also agree that "profiling" of rock bands and the rock scene probably plays a role in places like Peter C's getting targeted for noise patrols rather than the neighborhood karaoke bar.

[lonewolf]

The Pennslyvania Code: (Isn't that State Law?)

From the PA Code FAQ:

What is the difference between a rule or regulation (on one hand) and a statute or law or act (on the other hand)?

The General Assembly enacts statutes by passing bills in the Senate and House of Representatives and sending them to the Governor for approval. Some statutes give an agency in the executive branch the authority to adopt rules to further carry out the statute. Armed with this authority, the executive branch agency adopts rules by following a rulemaking procedure.

As it stands, the executive rule in question gives the LCE officer full discretion over what constitutes a violation. Unfortunately, if the enforcing officer can hear anything at all outside the premesis, they can write them up.

Since there has never been legislation to address this problem, we could propose new legislation that would supercede the executive rule. I think Rick Geist would be receptive to the problem and would sponser legislation that is reasonable and fair to all parties.

The alternative would be to petition the LCB or the governor directly and persuade them to change the rule. Good Luck. Here is the procedure:

http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/001/c ... 35.18.html

I do believe that any other action would be akin to pissing into the wind.

[Imgrimm01]

Since THE GRIMM was directly involved in one of these attacks ( for lack of a better word ) we are going to take an active approach to this I have sort of pushed Kent into the leadership role ( he's good at that sorta thing ) and he is going to head this thing up with me right on his coat tail pushing and supporting in any every way I can, please stay posted for further info which will follow and the date and time of a meeting that we hope to put together very soon. And again I ask all of you don't get weak on this or forget about it we have to beat this B4 it beats us.

[bassist_25]

I definatley encourage anyone with a legal background to take part in this organization. I know we have some musicians who are lawyers at their dayjobs.

[FatVin]

The Reg that Lone Wolf sites:

§ 35.18. Petitions for issuance, amendment, waiver or deletion of
regulations.
A petition to an agency for the issuance, amendment, waiver or repeal of a regulation shall set forth clearly and concisely the interest of the petitioner in the subject matter, the specific regulation, amendment, waiver or repeal requested, and shall cite by appropriate reference the statutory provision or other authority therefor. The petition shall set forth the purpose of, and the facts claimed to constitute the grounds requiring, the regulation, amendment, waiver or repeal. Petitions for the issuance or amendment of a regulation shall incorporate the proposed regulation or amendment

Let me translate from legalese:

A legal petition must include:

1. Who we are and what we want.

2. What the rule is now

3. The legal reasons why the rule needs to be changed.

4. The changes we want to make (in short, our better idea)

here are my thoughts on the subject.

1. We, the undersigned, are, citizens of , professional musicians of, and performers of non-sex-based entertainment practicing in, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We hereby petition the The Commonwealth of Pennslyvania for the amendment of Title 40, Chapter 5, Section 32, Paragraph A, which states:

A licensee may not use or permit to be used inside or outside of the licensed premises a loudspeaker or similar device whereby the sound of music or other entertainment, or the advertisement thereof, can be heard on the outside of the licensed premises.

2. While we recognize that it is in the interest of the Commonwealth to regulate unwanted sounds and limit their nusience value to the public at large. It is our assertion that the regulation, as now written, constitutes an undue burden on our profession, interefering with the not only the legitimate businesses of the licensee but placing unneccessary restrictions on the entertainment industry as a whole.

3. As written, the aformentioned regulation is, in fact, contrary to the laws of physics and impossible to enforce fairly. The result of this, is arbitrary and selective enforcement of this regulation that has been a burden to the Food Service, Entertainment, Travel and Tourism industries, just to name a few, and a retardant to the economic growth of the Commonwealth as a whole.

4. It is our petition that the aforementioned regulation should read as follows:

A licensee may not use or permit to be used inside or outside of the licensed premises a loudspeaker or similar device whereby the sound of music or other entertainment, or the advertisement thereof, can be heard at a level greater than 50 decibles at a distance from the premises of 50 feet.

We further petition that the word "premises", be defined for the purposes of this regulation as follows: The building or stucture of license and any and all adjoining grounds held by the licensee.

anyway, that's just me spitballing, I'm sure the legal language is off some and 50dbs at 50 feet, I just pulled out of my butt, some of you who know a lot more about sound and the law for that matter can fine tune it but those are my thoughts. If there is gonna be a meeting lemme know I'm there.

[tonefight]

Thats sounds pretty good Vinny, my only comment would be to include either Patrons or customers into the who we are catagory.

If fans are interested in the cause this includes them and musicians could also be counted as fans/ patrons / customers because on a night off most musicians go hear other musucians.

[grimmbass]

Vinny,

As always, bravo for your decorum and choice of words....methinks you'd be an excellent spokesperson as well! Just one or two comments:

1. The bar owners should want to be involved in this. They are tax-paying businesses who are being unfairly harrassed and it is costing them money. They should want to have a stake in this.

2. Your use of specific distances/db is great. I think that we should also include examples of currently "tolerated" activity, such as sporting events.

3. Local legislators should care what happens to their constituent bar owners. Do you think any of these guys would back us? Christ, if we can abolish a helmet law, this noise issue should be cake.

4. As musicians, we're all pretty outspoken (Farenheit 911 anyone?)....we need to go into this appearing as a unified front of professionals, not angry malcontents. The person who usually wins an arguement is the one who can keep his/her cool.

My only real concern is the "non-sexual" performances line.....man, anybody who's been to a Grimm show might contest what the nature of our performances are (lol).

You rule, friend. Count on The Grimm to be supporters on this one.

Kent, Bass, The Grimm

[lonewolf]

We already have a model to draw upon. The State College noise ordinance would be a good place to start. Can anybody in State College drop by the borough building and get a copy of the ordinance and post it?

I believe theirs is 55db at the edge of the property. Since this will affect commercially zoned sites, I believe this should be slightly different. The public at large on a public sidewalk or highway in a commercial zone does not have a right to privacy nor should they expect it.

It should be an acceptable level, like 55db, at the edge of any private property that is affected. In the interest of public safety, a higher decibel reading could be applied to the public domain that is considered within safe hearing limits--say 70db. Placing a 50' distance from the property line would be an encroachment on any private property located within 50' of the premesis in question. I doubt if the LCB would accept that.

For example, at Peter C's, the 55db measurement zone would be the edge of King's parking lot, the edge of the parking lot across the side street (30th?), the edge of the property across the alley and the property line with the 1st property going up the block.

Another issue that needs addressed in the rule is the specification and calibration of decibel SPL meters for enforcement.

Something to kick around.....

[Big Jim]

Does anyone have access to, or know how to get a db meter? It would be interesting to go around town and see how much noise there is everywhere to help support the request to change the laws.

[songsmith]

They literally use the same dB meter you can get at Radio Shack for $30 AFAIK.------>JMS

[lonewolf]

1. The bar owners should want to be involved in this. They are tax-paying businesses who are being unfairly harrassed and it is costing them money. They should want to have a stake in this.

Actually, it is the bar owners who should propose the petition to the LCB, since this rule was established for their businesses. I'm not so sure the LCB would be as receptive to a petition from musicians, since we are not licensed by the LCB and technically outside their juris diction. We might be generating the noise, but it is at the request of the the owners.

I can't think of a better place to garner signatures for a petition than in the bars that the rule affects. We need to get all the interested bar owners on board as soon as possible. Signatures from residents surrounding the bars couldn't hurt either.

[nightcrawler_steve]

[We already have a model to draw upon. The State College noise ordinance would be a good place to start. Can anybody in State College drop by the borough building and get a copy of the ordinance and post it?

You may find the ordinance for State College Boro here: www.statecollegepa.us

Once on the site, click on "Codification of Ordinances", then click on "CHAPTER V - CONDUCT", then click "Part A - Noise Control Ordiances". It will open as a PDF. I hope this helps.

I rarely post, but this topic is of real concern as a musician. We do not play in the Altoona area, but we have seen one of the clubs we play regularly lose numbers due to the frequent harrassment of patrons by law enforcement. I realize (and appreciate) the police need to do there job and try to keep the drunks off the road, but at what point does it become discriminatory? I suspect the same is going on with the noise level at clubs in the Altoona area. I agree with some of the posts that say this is a bar owner issue. We as musicians can create awareness, but the clubs will have to affect change. Petitions sound like a great idea for us as musicians to do our share. If anyone puts together this "petition", perhaps the ROCKPAGE creators can put a PDF of it on here so we may download and distribute at shows.

[lonewolf]

Thanks for the link Steve. After moving back to Blair county, I have been conditioned to think that there are no local laws posted on the internet. I guess that's only here in the 1950's Museum of Blair.

A .pdf of the final documents won't be a problem.

[BDR]

Steve,

Not to be a jerk, but your gigantic band banner makes it hard to read this thread. You have to scroll side-to-side for every line. Think you could downsize that a little?

Oh, and welcome to the board.

r:>)

[lonewolf]

Whoa...the State College ordinance is a bit of overkill, but it yields some good points. The db levels were 58db everywhere except the downtown area which is 62 db. Since the rule in question affects businesses similar to the bars in downtown State College, 62db would be a good SPL number to use. We would have the State College ordinance to hold up as an example reference legislation for the petition.

I'll keep digging.

[BDR]

Thanks, Steve...

r:>)

[lonewolf]

Here is a good link for our purposes...it even cites PA Supreme Court cases for vagueness:

http://www.kdefe.com/articles/guidelin.htm

Check out the section "Lawful Exercise Of Police Power"

[FatVin]

First of all, like I said in that post, That was just me spit ballin, Yeah I've had a lot of time to think about it so it was a carefully constructed spit ball but I thought I'd better get the ball rollin somehow, they went through 2 or 3 drafts of the Declaration of Independance as I recall.

Often, there are too many people who will give you all the reasons why it can't be done and not enough who want to suggest a way to do it so I thought I'd better step up.

Under normal circumstances I hate to be edited by other people but these aren't normal circumstances, I put that up there FOR YOU to add your comments and to get the ball rolling.

FIRST LET ME SAY THAT ANY LANGUAGE WE USE SHOULD BE LOOKED OVER BY AN HONEST TO GOD LAWYER AND A FIRST CLASS POLITICAL OPERATIVE

Second, Yeah, Bar owners should definately be involved, but I think we should call them "licensees". I thought of Fans and Bar patrons but I call them "citizens", I think it'll read nicer on the floor of the PA house.

Next, Well I told ya that 50db at 50 ft was just some numbers I pulled out of my butt so I'll let real sound guys give us more accurate numbers, I think the state college model is a great idea.

Big Jim had an excellant thought about going out and checking out what is normal for noise levels in a typical burg like toon town, gotta remember too, that if we get this changed it'll be for the whole state.

The idea of distance was to set some parameters for measuring, I could be wrong but won't you get a diffrent reading on a db meter if you are standing close to a door or window than you will if you are just hanging out in the parking lot?

Sorry Kent, I don't want to cramp anyone's style with the Sex-based performers line but the perception that all musicians and strippers are all vagabond trash, cut from the same cloth as hookers and pimps is very strong among the hoidy-toidy governmental set (even though most of them spend as much time getting lap dances as I do). Even if I'm wrong about that we will still have to slip this by the Amish and the Quakers and the kind of people who buy up all the liquor licenses in a town so that no one can serve liquor to anyone. They all vote and politicians are scared stiff of them.

I wanted to separate us from Sex based performers like strippers and the occasional massuse (love you, ladies, but this full contact politics) While, no doubt, The Blues and Rock and Roll is all about sex, ya gottta admit it's not quite the same kind of entertainment one enjoys at the End Zone or the Garden Spa. I was trying to distance us from that. We have to be seen as professionals united for a letgitimate cause, the minute anyone thinks we are merely, 'Fighting for our right to party", we are in deep trouble.

Remember that these legislators who will have to vote openly on this, will screw each other over for the sake of screwing each other over, it has nuthin to do with the merits of any one initiative, If a guy or gal thinks they can score political points attacking us on moral grounds and thereby advance his or her career, he or she will do it, without a thought.

If this gets spun into a moral issue, we are in deep deep trouble.

Again let me refer you to what I said in big red letters above.

[lonewolf]

Vinny, I thought you wanted to petition the LCB per that procedure I posted. That procedure is a direct petition to the LCB and doesn't go thru the legislature--that's why I put "good luck" at the end of the statement.

We don't need to go around taking db readings. There are several noise laws on the books that we can use as reference (see the reg link--they want legal references).

Everything I've seen for a commercial site is 60db to 62db.

[FatVin]

To Lone Wolf:

I'm a humble musician, not a lawyer and I would certainly recommend, and have, I believe more than once, that a lawyer and a professional political operative should e consulted. I don't have to be in charge of this deal, I just wanna see it get done and if that means I must give it up personally to see that happen I'll gladly do that.

If you know so much about legal procedure in Pennsylvainia, then by all means, let's hear your ideas on how to get this done, and not excuses why it can't be done,

if you're so smart..lead the way.

That being said:
A direct apeal to the LCB for a reasonable regulation? How Sneaky

I was not under the impression that you could apeal to the LCB directly. That was not made clear to me. I knew there was a liquor Court of sorts but I always thought that kangaroo suits were involved.

Now that I have THAT information, I think, yeah, we have to try it, before going to the legislature, it's chain of command thing.

I think it's right to be cynical about our chances, why would the LCB want to give up even a small piece of their nefarious power, the mad fools.

That being said, it's more important now than ever to put the proposition before the LCB, in terms so plain and clear as to command ascent of what obvioulsy is a more fair standard.

If rejected by the LCB, there will be a next step, even the Almighty LCB must be answerable to some elected official or other, we are, still, in America after all.

[grimmbass]

Vinny,

Only kidding on the Grimm "sexual performer" comments, but point well taken......

So, are you our leader on this one? Count me in as a follower if that's the way it is.....

Full-contact politics, here we come!

Kent, Bass, The Grimm

[tonefight]

To Vinny and Lonewolf....... I commend you both for your thoughts and ideas on getting this done. I think you both have good input, lonewolf although you research and knowledge is A+ , try working with these guys and use your info to help 'em get it done instead of insulting them. I know it may be your posting style but I still say it comes off a little harsh.

I think Big Jim wants to take db readings so everyone knows where the decible limits will be , I know I have no clue what db my band or anyones band is playing at on a given night.

[lonewolf]

C'mon guys, don't be defensive. All I was doing was asking a question and then trying to comment on my prior post. I was confused on which way this whole was going. Insult was the last thing on my mind...I just don't beat around the bush when I'm typing. Had we been in the same room, it would not have come off that way.

I think Big Jim wants to take db readings so everyone knows where the decible limits will be , I know I have no clue what db my band or anyones band is playing at on a given night.

That's cool, but there is already legal precedent supporting sound levels of 60-62db in a commercial zone. Somebody already did all that legwork and that saves Big Jim the trouble and $30. Wherever this gets submitted, they are going to want legal precedent supporting everthing in it.

Of course, knowing you like I do Big Jim, you'll want to do it anyway...just for the fun and curiosity of it. Let me know if you do...we can go bar hopping.

Vinny, that was a good write up and all I was doing was exactly what you said...making suggestions. I was in no way trying to say why it couldn't be done, I just thought that the legislative route might be easier that petitioning the PLCB (hence, "good luck"--thats supposed to be funny--see George Carlin on Narcotics Policemen). However...whatever we construct here could be used for either direction.

I think that petitioning the PLCB 1st is a good idea because there is less red tape and would take less time. If they shut us down, we would already have the framework to submit to a representative for legislation. The PLCB might also cite legal reasons for rejection and we could adjust it accordingly.

[lonewolf]

...having said that...I would like to take part in the drafting of the rule and citing legal precedent to support it. I don't care who the leader is...I nominate Vinny. I would like to make a suggestion on how to approach this. Rather than just writing a rule (or law) we should first list all the points that we want to address and find legal precedent for them. Here are a few for starters:

1. The licensed establishments are de facto business zones and should be treated as such.

2. The decibel limit measured at the edge of a property in a business zone should be 62db. The precedent for this is the State College noise ordinance. I haven't seen any numbers greater than 62db, so its pretty cool that we have a respected local model to draw from and get that extra 2db.

3. We need to specify "edge of the licensed property" rather than "outside the premesis", which is vague.

4. We need to show how "heard outside the premesis" is legally vague in that there is no measurable standard and it also gives the enforcing officer too much discretion as to allow the possibility of discrimination.

5. Here's a "how to" guide and its even based in PA law! We should use it as a reference:

http://www.kdefe.com/articles/guidelin.htm