Additional steps urged to curb noise from bar

BANGOR – Ongoing complaints about noise from bars near residential areas continues to be a problem for city officials, who on Monday discussed the need for a comprehensive approach to the problem.

A solution, however, might not be within easy reach.

“There doesn’t appear to be a magic bullet out there,” Police Chief Don Winslow said Monday during a meeting of the City Council’s finance committee. Winslow said he has consulted with other communities to see how they are handling the problem. He learned that some are restricting decibel levels and hours for musical entertainment, but that “others are doing what we’re doing,” namely working to get owners to take steps to reduce noise stemming from their businesses.

In recent months, city councilors have fielded complaints from neighbors of Raena’s Pub and Club Gemini, the two latest drinking and dancing establishments to be the subject of complaints from neighbors fed up with loud music, hollering and other problems generated by rowdy patrons.

After a meeting Monday with Raena Everett, owner of Raena’s Pub, and her neighbors Jerry and Lorraine King, city councilors recommended that Everett take two additional steps to curb noise from her pub, located behind 3G Food Mart on Main Street, between Lincoln and Larkin streets.

During a May 2 meeting with the finance committee, the Kings, whose rear property line abuts the pub property, said noise from bands, people using their yard as a shortcut and patrons parking in front of their home were some of the problems they’ve dealt with lately.

Since then, Everett has met with Winslow and Code Enforcement Officer Dan Wellington to see how matters might be improved. So far, she has extended a fence between her property and that of the Kings, which Jerry King said has stopped patrons from trespassing onto their property. Everett also has stepped up efforts to police the parking lot. She also has purchased a decibel meter and put the speakers up on the stage.

The Kings said the noise problem persists.

“With the exception of stopping the trespassing, nothing much has changed,” Jerry King said. “It’s still a pain. It hasn’t gone away and I suspect it won’t.”

Wellington said that decibel readings taken around the pub were not exceeding 65 decibels, or the level of ambient noise from Main Street, and as such were within reasonable limits from a city standpoint.

On Monday, councilors asked Everett to create a smoking area on the Main Street side of the building, which requires the installation of an additional exit, and to add an interior wall on the side of the building facing the Kings.

During the meeting, Everett asked how much more she would have to do.

“I keep going and going and when I do something, they say it’s not enough,” she said. She said she wanted to know the steps would be effective before incurring any further costs.

Though he noted the committee’s recommendations would be nonbinding, Winlsow said that the two additional steps would further dampen the noise coming from the pub.

Because problems with bars and noise likely won’t be going away anytime soon, Winslow recommended that the council develop a citywide approach “that can affect businesses equitably.”

Councilor Susan Hawes supported the concept. “We can’t start changing rules for one and not another,” she said.