San Francisco Protects Music Venues from Noise Complaints with New Law

Music venues is crowded parts of San Francisco can breathe a sigh of relief after the city enacted new legislation to help protect venues from lawsuits regarding noise complaints. Concert spaces such as Dogpatch, Upper Market and The Mission have been hit with lawsuits tied to noise levels in recent years, and not entirely at any fault of their own (from Billboard).

The problem isn't that the music venues are hosting acts that blast music at higher levels than other acts...but that more and more people have moved into closer vicinity to the performance spaces in recent years. San Francisco features some of the highest demand for living space of any city in the United States. That demand has encouraged developers to build new residential spaces in mixed-use neighborhoods, some of which host music venues. New residents, apparently not realizing how music venues work, have consequently sues concert halls over the levels of noise generated. Many venues have spent money on insulation and other options to reduce the amount of noise escaping the building, often to little avail.

The new legislation passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors puts the onus of responsibility on developers, and not the venues, for ensuring that residents are comfortable with the situation. As long as an existing venue operates under the normal noise regulations that it opened with, it can't be held legally responsible by those living above and around for noise complaints. Instead, a resident would bring a complaint against the developer, at which point a court would decide whether they had done enough to inform the buyer of the potential for sound from the nearby concert hall.

"The soul of this city is just changing so fast, whether it's a Google bus or whatever else," said Jocelyn Kane, executive director of the Entertainment Commission. "It's different now from what we saw in the '90s, with the amount of money, and the sustained amount of change. This legislation is important because it forces project sponsors to come talk to us and get our signoff."