A lack of amplification was an important reason that a Woodstock meeting about amplified music last Tuesday evening turned into a disaster as members of an overflow crowd struggling to hear the proceedings became disruptive.
The room at the town hall was too small for the massive crowd. Frustrated people forced to stand in the lobby became restive. Eventually, chants of “push forward” led to the crowd moving forward, standing along the walls and sitting on the floor in front of the seats.
Woodstock town supervisor Bill McKenna shut down the April 23 public hearing on a proposed noise ordinance after the event devolved into chaos.
The town board and members of the task force which drafted the proposal used microphones for the benefit of the Zoom audience. Many restless folks who had never attended such a meeting didn’t understand the need to get other business out of the way first.
The crowd became further incensed when task-force members spoke well beyond the two minutes McKenna had told the audience everyone had been allowed for speaking. Nobody had explained that the task force would speak first, either.
The proposed ordinance limits live amplified music to Fridays and Saturdays for three hours each between noon and 9 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, plus Sundays on holiday weekends. The sound cannot exceed 70 decibels at the venue property line.
In addition, up to five special events per year may be allowed for a maximum of five hours each from noon to 9 p.m. with a maximum 75 decibels at the property line. Special events must be approved by an events committee to be formed by the town board.
Please hear this
Task force member Kristen Eberhardt tried to explain the purpose was not to banish all music. “If you hear nothing else tonight, please hear this. We are not music haters, not one of us. Not one person at that table is trying to take music away,” she said.
Several in the audience laughed. “What’s a music hater?” one asked.
Eberhardt persisted.
“To the contrary, we’re trying to find a solution to a complex situation,” she said. “I’m going to ask you to please take a deep breath tonight to do the same. Consider a moment where we are nestled beneath the glorious Catskill Mountains. We stand at a crossroads and get to decide how we’re going to show up here … How we’re going to treat each other?
“Some are here for the creativity of music, others for the nature, and others for the peace and quiet. And for many, maybe all of the above. But please remember, facts matter. The provisions of the pandemic are expired.”
Eberhardt provided a brief history.
Venues were given wide latitude to provide outdoor spaces under the authority of an emergency order that waived the normal planning approval process, she said. That order had expired, opening the door for noise complaints from residents who didn’t want to hear music when sitting on their porch or inside with windows open. The complaints had thrust business owners into controversy as they tried to apply for permanent status.
“We are here tonight to dispel the disinformation. It’s easy to rally the troops with fallacies and fearmongering,” Eberhardt said. “It is not so easy to sit at the table and have difficult conversations. And I’m personally extending this invitation to each of you to be the Woodstockers we espouse to be.”
There was derisive audience laughter.
Music producer and task-force member Julie Last tried to explain how sound travels nearby and affects the lives of homeowners.
“Now that the immediate danger of the pandemic has passed and music is safe inside again, some members of the community want to have some peace and quiet,” Last said. “They are not music haters or entitled transplants.”
Her next comment was what put the audience over the edge.
“Imagine not being able to put your child to bed at night. Imagine not being able to watch a Yankees game with the windows open,” Last said.
The audience started yelling, drowning her out.
“The horror. The horror. Oh, my god,” shouted one sarcastic soul.
“This is a big flop here”
McKenna slammed his fist on the table. He had warned that the meeting would be adjourned if it was interrupted one more time.
“All right. Meeting adjourned,” he said.
The crowd booed.
Some in the audience started to chant, “We want music!” Many joined the singing and chanting.
Hearing the commotion at the police station in the same building, the police arrived. But the crowd was generally peaceful after the meeting had ended.
A crowed gathered on the front lawn in peaceful protest. They brandished, power tools, maintaining that live music was being more tightly regulated than loud machinery.
“This town should be perceived as music-friendly, not antagonistic,” said musician Jeff Newton, who had threatened to sue the town if it implemented the new law, but had been talked out of thar action by task-force member Jerry Marotta. “You don’t want to piss off the nice homeowners who pay a lot of property taxes. I get it. Good compromise and dialogues is the way to go unless you can’t come to an agreement.
“Every town has a noise ordinance, as it should, but it’s got to be workable for that town. But obviously, this is a big flop here. Woodstock is not an outdoor shopping mall. They got that at Woodbury Commons.”
McKenna felt a number of attendees had come to the meeting impaired. They had not been there to listen. He compared some of the disruptors to those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The public hearing is scheduled for the May 14 town-board meeting to be held at 7 p.m. at the more spacious Mescal Hornbeck Community Center, 56 Rock City Road. A sound system that will let the audience hear the proceedings will be used.
Here comes the sun
Rachel Marco-Havens felt the meeting was flawed from the get-go.
“It would have been wise for the meeting to have begun and been centered around listening to the people in order to ascertain what was necessary to tweak this. That’s what a public hearing actually is,” she said.
Marco-Havens said it has been unfair to put Eberhardt and Last up against that crowd. The proposed law had been posted on the town website without explanation.
“I think that one of Bill’s [McKenna’s] biggest problems is that he’s not a politician,” she said. “And so what happens is that he doesn’t have a PR agent. He’s not trying to spin his story in a particular way, and he doesn’t necessarily have the capacity to break it down for the community to understand. I don’t find that to be malfeasance. I think that it’s just a style that is not necessarily as easy for many of the people that live here.”
Marc-Havens felt the meeting had been a perfect manifestation of Woodstock’s class-related issues.
“You had no amplification in a meeting that was discussing amplified music and the proof was in the pudding, that this level of sound ordinance does not allow for actual human interaction. It also puts a strain on public gathering,” she explained. “When you two women in front of 150 or 200 angry people, and they don’t have the relational context to speaking to lower-end street-level musicians — community members that have been less visible since they came to town — you end up with a problem.”
Marco-Havens, Richie Havens’ daughter, is now co-president of the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce along with Michael Lang’s daughter Shala. That organization, which hosted a meeting this Monday evening, has expanded its mission to encompass the needs of artists in a more inclusive way.
“As advocates for arts in an artists’ colony, it’s important that we come together as artists and musicians and creatives to come up with the clear asks that we have of our municipality. We would like to see the clear asks of the people who are having problems with music in our municipality and return to this conversation with some grace,” Marco-Havens said. “The truth is that our young people don’t see a future for themselves in this town. And they have a really hard time seeing a future for themselves as artists in this community.”
Mike Mulvey is one of the musicians who feel their livelihood is threatened by the proposed ordinance’s limitations on their ability to perform.
“The town is creating situations where they’ve got an onerous policy, based on nothing, that they’ve instituted over 50 years of past practice to placate a few people who have threatened to sue the town,” argued Mulvey. He said the task force lacked representation from those whose livelihoods depended on music.
“There was no one to speak on behalf of the artists’ colony,” he said. “There was no one to speak on behalf of those who represent the brand of the artist colony, and there was no representation from any of the other businesses or workers in town who do not work directly in the entertainment industry but whose livelihood depends upon them.”
Adapting to new scrutiny
The proposed ordinance has fueled resentment among smaller venues like Station Bar & Curio, whose owners feel they were shut out of the process. Larger venues like the Colony and Bearsville were able to move shows inside during the later hours. Smalle places didn’t have the space and had to rely on an outdoor stage.
Recent concerts at outdoor music venues were within compliance of the proposed law when measured with a readily available decibel meter app on a smartphone.
At the Station April 26, the band Bourbon Sprawl measured 82 decibels in close proximity to the stage, but 61 decibels in the lower Comeau municipal parking lot directly behind it.
At Colony Woodstock, similar results were found April 26 and 27, with levels in the low 80 decibels in the beer garden, but high 50s to low 60s in the adjacent Rock City Road Parking lot.
The Station is trying new music programming that conforms to the new constraints, having launched the Honky Tonk Happy Hour Fridays from 6 to 9.
Some argue two nights just isn’t enough.
“I think it just will rain depression onto the town and into the arts,” said Ben Rollins, who co-owns the Station with his wife, Lily Korolkoff. “So for the Station to be what it is, we need to be able to give the community the stage to be heard.”
Rollins termed limiting outdoor amplified music to six hours a week “a shackle.” His venue could probably survive without it, he conceded. “But the existence and the soul behind it will definitely take a beating.”
Rollins was a member of the task force, but said he left it when it became evident to him the Station’s input wasn’t valued.
Neil Howard, who owns Colony Woodstock with his wife and task-force member Alexia Burland-Howard, felt outdoor music would disappear if it weren’t for the compromise.
“It doesn’t work for us, either, but it’s better than having no beer garden at all. ” said Howard. “I just don’t think it can be seven nights a week, as loud as you want ‘til ten o’clock, which is kind of what they’re hoping for. I wish it was that way. I wish there was no complainers and we just got that because then we’d actually maybe survive as a business. Two nights a week is not really going to turn the dial for us. But we’ll take it. We need all the help we can get.”
Howard hoped the discussion wouldn’t be another back-and-forth fight that extended through the outdoor music season. It took Colony “weeks and months to program that stuff,” he said. “We can’t just stop and start it. One side wants complete silence and one sides wants to do whatever they want, and neither is fair.”
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