When it comes to noise on the streets of Dewey Beach, residents don’t hesitate to raise their voices. They recently told noise committee members and Chief of Police Sam Mackert the late-night racket of vacationing crowds is unacceptable.
The committee voted 7-1 to recommend to the commissioners a noise limit of 72 decibels (dB) during the day, and 70 dB at night – roughly the equivalent of busy traffic or a vacuum cleaner.
More than 50 citizens crowded into the Lifesaving Station Saturday, Aug. 1, for what committee member and Dewey Beach Enterprises President Jim Baeurle called a venting – the first hour of the meeting, he said, was consumed by public outcry.
“It was a shame,” he said. “The lack of agenda, the disorder.”
Commissioner Marc Appelbaum said the overall mood was one of frustration and exasperation.
“A lot of citizens are very upset,” he said. “They feel they can’t enjoy their town.”
Appelbaum said a small percentage of the complaints targeted Dewey’s bars – the majority of the frustration, he said, is with the flood of revelers leaving the bars after closing time.
“There were people saying they had to close their windows on a beautiful night,” he said. “And they can still hear it. And why isn’t the town doing anything about this?”
Steve Montgomery, committee member and owner of The Starboard, said police and bar owners do the best they can.
“We’ve got staff standing on the corners of our lot, telling people to keep quiet,” Montgomery said. “But when the police are patrolling the beach and the north end of town, you don’t really have that many left.”
Committee member Barbara Dougherty disagreed – she said the meeting was relatively calm and well-behaved.
“I think it was pretty reasonable, considering,” she said, noting the heat inside the Lifesaving Station and the contentious issue at hand. Dougherty approved of the 72-70 dB limit.
“I think it’s a very fair recommendation,” she said. “ I think it’s a start.”
Montgomery said enforcing a hard-and-fast noise ordinance that fines businesses for violating a decibel limit is unrealistic – situations need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. A recent sound reading of The Starboard at 11 a.m. on a Monday morning revealed the restaurant to be running at 66 dB. When a police officer started his motorcycle, the reading spiked over 100.
Montgomery said he fears public outrage will prompt the commissioners to enact an unrealistic noise ordinance.
“I feel like they’re just so fed up that they want to slap a noise ordinance on it,” Montgomery said. “But we need to be realistic.” He said businesses were looking into hiring off-duty state troopers to manage the closing-time crowds and keep them quiet.
The existing noise ordinance allows 70 dB during the day and 60 at night. During the 2009 summer season, the town has experimented with permitting 80 dB during the day and 75 dB at night. Dougherty said it simply isn’t working.
“I think it was generally agreed that the noise level is too high,” she said.
While Dougherty, a resident of Swedes Street, said she’s no stickler – she referred to herself as a partying retiree – she said something must be done.
“I think that some people feel that our quality of life has deteriorated,” she said. “I will not hear the ocean from May until October, when I can open my house again.”
HOW THE DECIBEL SYSTEM WORKS
The decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit measuring the intensity of sound. Here are some benchmarks:
40db: A quiet room
60dB: conversation, dishwasher
70dB: busy traffic, vacuum cleaner
80dB: alarm clock, busy street
100dB: chainsaw, pneumatic drill
140dB: firearms, jet engine
Source: The American Speech-Language-Hearing
By Rob Kunzig