La Conner to revisit noise restrictions for live music

When Gloria Hulst began planning this year's live music program for the town of La Conner's weekly summer series, she had lots of ideas.

La Conner Live, a nonprofit organization, has for years brought music to the town's Gilkey Square, including jazz, blues and rock. This summer, the group was looking to add both tribal dance and Latino dance music to the roster, said Hulst, 61.

That was the plan, at least until Hulst received an addendum to her contract with the town that would restrict the music to 55 decibels. The town cited its local noise ordinance along with a chapter of state law, that, if applied evenly, could make running a lawnmower or even talking in a normal voice potentially unlawful.

After serving up live music in Gilkey Square for more than a decade, the new restrictions caught Hulst and regional musicians by surprise.

"I actually still don't even know when it was passed, how it was passed, who made those decisions," said Hulst, of the noise ordinance.

The noise level of a normal conversation is 60 decibels, according to the American Academy of Audiology, and so is the running of a dishwasher.

Gas-powered lawn mowers and power tools come in at 90 decibels, and live music at 110 decibels. Fifty-five decibels is a little louder than moderate rainfall, according to the academy.

The blowback to the noise restrictions was swift, with more than a dozen citizens and business owners speaking out at a La Conner Town Council meeting earlier this month.

Now, town officials are promising to come up with a solution. The issue is back on the Town Council agenda for its regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday. For both fans of live music and the musicians paid for it, the outcome could signal whether the summer season is salvageable.

In an interview, La Conner Mayor Marna Hanneman said that noise complaints started coming in not just from some merchants, but condominium residents, too.

"Up until last year there were no complaints, we didn't have any problems," said Hanneman. "But the music got really loud and we had a lot of complaints, not only from the merchants but residents farther down in a residential area."

Nonetheless, Hanneman vowed to find a compromise that will get La Conner Live back to playing music this summer.

"We'll make it happen, it will come together," said Hanneman. "Music is important."

In explaining the new noise restrictions, Town Administrator Scott Thomas shared a copy of town Ordinance No. 1215, which passed in 2022. Thomas, who is also the town attorney, cited that along with two chapters in state law as the basis to restrict live music.

Ordinance No. 1215 declares that the town desires to further restrict nuisance noise caused by the maintenance, repair and/or new construction of residential property."

Asked if he had shared the correct ordinance with The Seattle Times, Thomas wrote in an email that ordinance No. 1215 doesn't just apply to residential construction but also "to many other situations and circumstances."

But when town councilors met to pass Ordinance No. 1215 in October 2022, there was no talk of its impact on anything other than residential construction.

In that meeting, Thomas told councilors and the public that the ordinance was prompted by noisy residential construction early in the morning, and that it would limit the hours that loud construction work could take place in residential areas.

During the council debate, one person questioned whether the ordinance would restrict the ability of the town's public works crews to do their jobs. The person asked if an exception was needed for the La Conner Public Works Department.

"It prohibits noises created by property equipment, used in temporary or periodic maintenance, repair or new construction of residential property," Thomas told those gathered. "So I don't view that as applying to public works."

In his email to The Seattle Times, Thomas also pointed to a pair of chapters in state law that sets the 55-decibel limit in residential areas. That was "adopted by the state Department of Ecology, is the same as has been adopted by most local governments that have implemented a decibel-based standards including Seattle, Bellevue, and others," he wrote.

The city of Bellevue also adheres to those two statewide restrictions, according to Michelle DeGrand, a spokesperson for the Bellevue city manager's office.

But, "Bellevue's ordinance includes allowances for temporarily exceeding the noise limits and issues permits for such needs, she wrote in an email.

For working musicians, Gilkey Square has "been a bit of a staple" over the years, said Tim Mechling, a musician who plays piano, upright bass and guitar.

Mechling, 38, lives in Anacortes and has played in Snohomish, Whatcom and Skagit counties, including in Gilkey Square. He spoke at the Town Council about how the music economy has gotten harder and harder.

"If you're not a tribute band that plays the casinos, if you're not in those high-paying Ticketmaster kind of gigs, you're really begging for scraps from the table." said Mechling in an interview. He supplements his musical income with freelance media work.

The blowback at the town over the noise limits "was a pretty unanimous, the community really showed up and came forward," added Mechling. "It was pretty unpopular what they decided."

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