The New York City Council plans to consider removing a portion of the city’s administrative code that permits ordinary citizens to issue noise violations, which add up to millions of dollars in fines for pubs, restaurants, and shops.
“It was hidden. Somebody found it and now someone’s profiteering off of it,” said Council Member James Gennaro (D–Jamaica Estates), referring to the provision that legalizes citizen noise enforcement. “We’ll take a look at it, but I think we’re just going to get rid of it.”
As chair of the City Council Environmental Committee, Gennaro said he is drafting legislation that would ban citizen enforcement of the noise code altogether.
Currently, citizen enforcers stand to collect between 25 and 50% of fines collected if they can prove in administrative court that a business played music heard on the sidewalk that was intended for “advertising purposes or to attract attention.”
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Dietmar Detering, one of the city’s most prolific writers of noise violations, defended the work of citizen enforcers, insisting they do the work city inspectors are unable or unwilling to do, and thereby make New York City a quieter, more pleasant place.
“The [Department of Environmental Protection], so far, has proven to us, and the NYPD, that they are not enforcing it” Detering said. “Who is going to do it if I’m not supposed to do it anymore and the other citizens now following in my footsteps cannot do it either?”
Detering, who says he makes his living issuing citizen summonses, has declined to say how much money he has collected thus far.
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Rohit Aggarwala, commissioner of New York City's DEP, said the law must be reformed and compared some of the citizen-generated ticketing to bounty hunting.
The DEP is now asking the City Council to consider a list of changes to the law, including:
- Removing ambiguity about when music heard on the sidewalk is prohibited
- Adding a decibel level threshold to qualify for a noise violation
- Requiring businesses be served with one noise violation before additional summonses can be filed against them
In many instances, businesses say citizen enforcers are issuing multiple tickets with escalating fines before owners are aware of the first ticket.
“Unfortunately one of the patterns we have seen is the citizen enforcers seem to go where it is easiest to make the money,” Aggarwala said. “If they are playing gotcha, if they are looking to rack up multiple violations for example without letting the business owner know about the first one – that is not legitimate enforcement activity. What that is, actually is bounty hunting.”
This week, a group of 28 pubs and restaurants in midtown signed on to a letter urging the City Council to put an end to citizen noise enforcement.
“It is absurd that the person who is primarily issuing us these tickets does not even live in the neighborhood,” the letter said. “Some businesses have ticket amounts that equate to the amounts of the SBA loans we received to stay afloat during Covid, which we are still paying back.”
But some neighbors fed up with noise say lawmakers who acquiesce to complaints from businesses, may underestimate how much support there is for peace and quiet.
Diane O’Connell, an attorney from Brooklyn, said she’s been complaining to the DEP about neighborhood noise for years without a satisfactory resolution. She sees citizen enforcement of the noise code as a terrific way to fill the gaps city inspectors are unable to fill.
“I don’t understand how it’s not a win-win,” O’Connell said. “Quite frankly the DEP doesn’t have enough inspectors to go around and inspect all the noise complaints in the city. They’ve proven that.”
