City neighborhoods deal with sound gap
Opinions differ about how loud is too loud in Schenectady areas
Junior Kisson and his pals gathered in his yard last week.
Their attention was focused on a van outfitted with subwoofers cranking out hip-hop at a teeth-rattling clip.
“Everybody plays music, celebrates parties, birthdays and whatever function,” Kisson said. “Or maybe there doesn’t even need to be a function.”
At the other end of Lincoln Avenue near the Carver Center, a young DJ has been magnetically attracting passersby as he cultivates and refines his skills in the Jamaican art of sound system, a genre that stitches together elements of rocksteady, reggae and dub.
Quiet in nature, he’s loud in his craft. But he’s not being disrespectful, said his neighbor, Ifrecak Miller.
Just practicing.
Music is intrinsic with Caribbean culture, Miller said, an indication that people are full of joy and enjoying life.
“They’re at rest, relaxing
and they’ve having fun,” said Miller, pointing at the long history of sound system at neighborhood jerk chicken joints in her native Jamaica.
It’s summer and the streets are sizzling. Yet this pocket of Hamilton Hill and other neighborhoods across the increasingly diverse city are debating the fine line where cultural traditions bleed into public nuisance.
The city, said Roberta Roberson, needs to crack down on excessive noise because it’s unfair to longstanding city residents like her elderly mother, who has lived on the block since the mid-1960s and whose quality of life has been lessened by the endless panoramic soundtrack.
Loud, thumping music at all hours is simply unacceptable, she said.
“If that’s their culture, they need to move to a farm in the woods,” said Roberson. “You’re going to tell us it’s your culture, to be ... disrespectful?”
Sometimes music comes from six different directions, Roberson said, with one house starting up, then another — and another. The wall of sound spirals out from Lincoln Avenue to Hulett Street, Grant and Duane Avenues. Paired with firecrackers, loud vehicles and the sirens of emergency and police vehicles, life on the block can be intolerable.
“And no one comes out and says anything,” Roberson said. “Residents are fearful to intervene or complain.”
The city code has provisions to regulate music.
Aside from city-approved activities open to the public for the public benefit, “sound reproduction” through amplifiers and radios are restricted if they cause “unreasonable or unnecessary noise.”
That meaning is whether neighboring residences can hear music between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., regardless of whether their windows are open.
Revelers can be found in violation if noise can be heard 50 feet from the device, whether a speaker-filled van like Kisson’s or a boombox.
For private parties, the hours apply from 11 p.m. to noon the following day, with noise defined as “loud, annoying or offensive” if it can be heard from 25 feet or more from its source.
On narrow city streets, that’s next door or across the street.
City police responded to 1,554 calls for loud music and noise complaints between Memorial Day and Labor Day last year.
It’s not immediately clear how many tickets were issued.
Police treat each call on a case-by-case basis and automatic ticketing isn’t the default solution.
“Generally we give people a warning before we cite them,” said Patrick Irwin, a city police spokesman. “If it’s constant, we’ll issue a ticket right off the bat. It’s the summer and we don’t want to be the fun police.”
Anything above 80 decibels is considered excessive and subject to a violation, with offenders subject to fines of up to $250 for the first offense, escalating up to $500 and/or a 30-day imprisonment for a third violation.
Police Chief Eric Clifford said monitoring decibel levels can be tricky, from ensuring officers have the proper equipment to arriving when the music is still at full blast.
Neighborhood leaders acknowledge police are spread too thin to be constantly issuing tickets and suggested the city may want to tighten up its ordinances.
“City Council should make you get one shot,” said Pat Smith, president of the Mont Pleasant Neighborhood Association. “And if you get a callback, it’s $100.”
Lawmakers appear to have little appetite to take action beyond issuing mild public pleas. Majority Leader John Polimeni occasionally implores residents to keep it down during weekly meetings.
“Play it so you can hear it, but the whole neighborhood doesn’t,” Polimeni said on Monday. “Just because you like something doesn’t mean the whole neighborhood wants to listen to it.”
Complaints pour in from across the city, he said, a deluge echoed by City Councilwoman Marion Porterfield.
“The City Council can take a look (at tightened regulations), but the mayor’s office needs to take a strong look at this,” said Porterfield, who agrees with a “talk first, penalize second” approach.
Different approaches
There’s a widespread sentiment on Lincoln Avenue that people can skirt regulations by applying for a special permit — but it's not carte blanche to behave badly.
Multiple agencies must sign off on the $125 permit, including the code enforcement bureau, city police and fire departments and the mayor’s office.
Applicants must include the phone number for a contact person and the license can be revoked at any time, said Chief Building Inspector Chris Lunn.
“As soon as complaints come in, you’re not going to get that permit,” Lunn said.
Applications have increased this year, but Lunn doesn’t see a trend because last summer's coronavirus restrictions limited large group gatherings.
Police will soon be equipped with another tool: Increased cultural training for officers is part of the package of police reforms the Council adopted this spring.
Ideally, responding officers will be better equipped to identify and understand West Indian and other cultural traditions when responding to noise complaints and act upon them appropriately.
“We’re not yet identifying what the plan will be, but plan to train them that various cultures exist in the city,” Clifford said.
Yet what’s considered to be a cultural celebration is limited to anniversaries and parties — not the indiscriminate blasting of music into the wee hours.
“Get to know your neighborhoods, get to know where you live and play music that’s reasonable,” Clifford said.
Miller agrees, noting Schenectady is an experiment in emerging multiculturalism. But she also sees the divide as an issue breaking out more along generational fault lines — not racial ones.
“The solution is to talk,” she said. “We have to be tolerant of each other, and accept what each others’ culture is bringing.”