Downtown Golden may soon be a little quieter, as city officials are considering an ordinance that would restrict amplified music.
The draft ordinance would only apply to public right of way, such as streets, sidewalks and alleyways, within the Downtown Development Authority boundaries.
It wouldn’t affect special events or private properties, including commercial businesses that host outdoor musical performances.
Acoustic music would still be allowed.
Megaphones would also be allowed as long as they weren’t being used to amplify music, including singing, Golden staff members have clarified.
The City Council has scheduled an ordinance second reading and public hearing about the issue at its July 22 meeting. Anyone wishing to submit written or verbal comments may do so at that time.
If passed at the July 22 meeting, city staff said the ordinance would take effect on or around July 30.
“This is not about banning street musicians,” City Councilor Patty Evans said at a June 10 work session. “ … They have some really great talent; it just needs to be quieter.”
‘The amplification has gotten out of control’
Evans and other councilors said they’ve received numerous complaints about street musicians — sometimes called buskers — playing so loudly that downtown employees can’t hear their customers if the business’ doors are open.
In city documents and meetings, City Manager Scott Vargo and Police Chief Joe Harvey have described how the city’s current ordinance can be difficult to enforce, as outdoor music is required to be 65 decibels or less.
City employees are trained to use measurement devices, but wind, crowd noise and traffic can interfere with the readings.
However, Vargo and Harvey said the bigger problems is that, when a city employee contacts someone using an amplification device and asks them to turn it, they will only do so temporarily — until the city employee has left the immediate area. Thus, the problems persist.
“It’s not that we don’t try to enforce existing regulations,” Vargo said at the June 10 work session. “It’s just a much more difficult enforcement technique that we have to go through.”
Thus, City Councilors and Downtown Development Authority members have been discussing this issue, considering various iterations of an ordinance. The current iteration only tackles amplified music in the public right of way, but city officials may revisit similar issues later in the year, they said.
The councilors at the June 10 work session were generally in favor of restricting amplified music, with Councilor Lisa Vitry saying she’s heard from local businesses that “the amplification has gotten out of control.”
Evans even said she’d be in favor of expanding the ordinance beyond the DDA boundaries, so it could benefit other nearby areas too.
Councilor Don Cameron, who’s been working on this ordinance with Councilor Bill Fisher for several months, added that some other municipalities have similar restrictions. He said Boulder has a decades-old ordinance that doesn’t allow any amplified music on the Pearl Street walking mall. Additionally, those who play acoustic music are required to move every 30 minutes.
With speakers and the like restricted in downtown Golden, Vargo and Harvey believed this would be easier and more efficient to enforce versus the current 65-decibel noise limit.
Any music at special events or commercial venues would still be subject to it, though, along with other existing city ordinances, they clarified.