City Hall urged to quell late night noise

VERNON – City Hall is being urged to put a damper on noise from nightclubs, machinery and leaf blowers before it drives any more business out of Vernon.

Ed Buie, general manager of the Journey Inn, came before council Tuesday to explain the situation.

“I’ve had countless guests tell me what a nice clean hotel (the Journey is)… but unfortunately we won’t be back because of the nightclub noise,” Buie said.

In fact, a guest wrote in to describe the “thundering base beat, throngs of drunk kids screaming and yelling, tires screeching and non-stop cruising by young drivers with boom boxes cranked to the max.” The guest wrote on to say they’d never in all their travels experienced a situation like this.

For Buie, it’s not just the nightclub noise, it’s early morning machinery and things like leaf blowers too. He said there are residential noise bylaws in other parts of the city that control things like that, but none in the commercial area of downtown Vernon. He’d like to see the city implement bylaws that would restrict noise levels between 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. and require nightclubs to keep their doors shut to prevent the sound from spilling out.

“I don’t think any of the things you’ve asked for are unreasonable,” Coun. Patrick Nicol said.

Several other businesses and community groups, including the Kekuli Centre, wrote in to lobby the city for action.

“Not only does the Journey Inn suffer economically but these are people who are not not shopping, dining or otherwise spending money with other merchants in our community,” Buie said.

Coun. Juliette Cunningham said it would be important for council to consider the issue particularly because they are trying to encourage more people to live downtown.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston at chelston@infotelnews.ca, call (250)309-5230 or tweet @charhelston.