Bradenton gets support to revise noise ordinance

Ward 2 City Councilman Patrick Roff received an ally on Wednesday in his push to revise the city’s noise ordinance to better fit the needs of businesses within the city’s commercial and entertainment districts.

The cities of Palmetto and Bradenton received letters supporting a common sense approach to a new noise ordinances from the Manatee Chamber of Commerce. The chamber polled its members last week, finding an overwhelming majority of participants in support for later closing times and higher allowable decibel levels within those districts.

While Roff isn’t necessarily in favor of later times than in the current ordinance, which is 10 p.m. seven days a week, he has pushed for revisions for months. Now Ward 4 City Councilman Bemis Smith also is expressing his support for the city to push forward with changes.

“I’d like to see us move quickly on addressing the noise ordinance,” said Smith. “Getting clarity for the businesses in the city is important, but the longer we delay the process, we postpone that clarity.”

The city voted to piggy-back on a proposed noise ordinance under review by Manatee County, but with a caveat that Bradenton will opt out if the language doesn’t address the city’s needs. That ordinance was rejected by Palmetto and is now undergoing more scrutiny from the Manatee County Board of Commissioners, which sent it back to an Aug. 16 workshop instead of a public hearing.

Mayor Wayne Poston said the county has some work to do and it’s still better to wait to see its final draft.

“We’ll decide to opt out or not from there,” he said. “Let’s get it right rather than get it early. Once the county makes a decision, we’ll need to get input from our planning department, police department and citizens.”

Smith and Roff support bringing the city’s ordinance to a city workshop as soon as possible to address the concerns of businesses like Motorworks Brewing. The anchor of the entertainment district has been plagued by complaints coming from one person, which turns the state’s largest beer garden into unusable space after 10 p.m., including weekends.

“We need to go about revising our own existing ordinance that would address the needs in a more timely manner than the county’s,” said Smith. “We can still make changes to our ordinance until we can make a more comprehensive change. I’m OK with that.”

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 2:01 PM with the headline "Bradenton gets support to revise noise ordinance."