ELLENTON — Manatee County commissioners praised a waterfront bar and restaurant’s plan to increase parking Tuesday but said it still needs to address neighbors’ noise complaints.
Commissioners approved Woody’s River Roo Pub and Grill’s plan to nearly double its parking spaces and add four boat slips to the 5717 18th St. E. facility.
Yet it barely passed on a 4-3 vote, even though the naysayers — commissioners Gwen Brown, Ron Getman and Joe McClash — said the additional parking will be an improvement.
Getman said he needed more information before he could vote, but Brown and McClash said the eatery’s owner hasn’t done enough to address noise complaints from neighbors.
“If you can’t find peace in your own house, where are you going to find peace at?” Brown told Robert Woodring, who has owned the business since 2003. “You’ve got a problem, and it needs to be addressed.”
Woodring said he already has taken several steps to lower the volume emanating from his outdoor stage, including limiting the hours when live music is performed and hiring smaller musical groups. He also said a 10-foot wall included in the parking plan will further shield neighbors.
Yet that has not solved the problem, said a neighbor who has lodged more than 200 noise complaints against Woody’s in the past four years.
“We feel the vibrations in the floor of our house,” Thomas Santoro said. “The answer is simple: Cut the noise from the band.”
But other commissioners said noise was a separate issue than the parking plan they were voting on.
“If you vote this down, you’re not going to solve the sound problem,” Commissioner Larry Bustle said.
Instead, he and other commissioners said noise should by handled through the county’s noise ordinance and by code enforcement. But a portion of the ordinance has been ruled unconstitutional and the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office has suspended enforcing it pending the outcome of an appeal, the county attorney’s office said.
The parking plan calls for increasing the number of spaces from 32 to 57, and adding four boat slips to the 18 already there.
That should reduce the number of patrons parking illegally along 18th Street East and other nearby roads, Woody’s officials said.
Duane Marsteller, transportation/growth and development reporter, can be reached at 745-7080, ext. 2630.
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