Noise gripes ‘ killing music’

THE music is dying in the CBD because of one or two residents regularly complaining about noise, musicians and venue managers say.

They add that if the council wants to develop a stadium and entertainment centre and have 30,000 people living and working in the CBD, they need to start thinking about how these activities can coexist.

“They need to follow what Brisbane has done in Fortitude Valley and class the CBD as an entertainment precinct,” CBD Townsville Liquor Accord spokesman Mark Napier said yesterday.

Mr Napier said the council needed to ensure residential towers were fitted with noise attenuation measures such as double- glazed windows.

Venue managers, musicians, liquor licensing officers and council representatives met last week where the problem of venues having to shut down because of chronic complainers was a central issue.

Events at venues including City Lane, the Herbert Hotel, the Perfume Gardens and the Seaview Hotel have been closed or relocated in recent times.

Musician Mark Williams said one or two CBD residents were holding entertainment in the CBD to ransom.

“It needs to be addressed,” Mr Williams said.

“If they can have ( live music) in Brisbane, why can’t we do it up here?”

Herbert Hotel manager Paul Venturato said police would not allow a recent blues festival event in the Perfume Gardens because of concern about noise, while the allowable noise levels at the hotel were too low to run events.

“The council has to look at this area as an entertainment precinct,” Mr Venturato said.

City Lane operator Jamie Fitzpatrick said the council had to decide whether it wanted a vibrant CBD or a retirement village.

Townsville councillor Les Walker, who attended this week’s meeting, was sympathetic to concerns of musicians and venue managers but said a balance was needed.

The council needed to look at issues of design for venues and residential buildings, Cr Walker said.

As for declaring an entertainment precinct, Cr Walker suggested this was only something that could only occur in Brisbane because that city had its own Act of Parliament.

However, a spokesman for the Office of Liquor and Gaming Regulation, which is responsible for regulating noise, said any council could establish a special entertainment precinct.