Sarasota musicians to protest noise restrictions

UPDATE: Sarasota musicians notch a victory in noise battle

Sarasota musicians, live music enthusiasts and business advocates are taking a stand against City Hall. They've sent out a rallying cry online asking people to attend the City Commission meeting today. The singers and supporters want the city to change the zoning rules that prohibits outdoor amplified music.

Hometown hero Twinkle Schaschle Ursula Yochim, who performs in downtown Wednesday through Saturday at Eat Here Sarasota, is among the artists who plan on attending the evening session scheduled to begin today at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall, 1565 First St.

“We're all so frustrated,” Yochim said. “I have just realized that my financial survival is and always has been linked to this."

The singer related a story about a woman coming down from her condo to complain about an a cappella performance at Eat Here.

“This is our town, too,” Yochim said. “And my family is four generations Sarasota, full-time residents, not transients. The musicians that have had to leave to find work are brilliant sons and daughters of this town. This is ridiculous.

"Now I have a healthy gig at Eat Here and don't want to lose my work again. I've got a granddaughter; I'm making a bright new album. Life is beautiful, and now I'm an outlaw again? This can't go on, they've got to go.”

Nicolaas Kraster of the band Lotus Fire has a plan. It’s a proposal “that will illustrate how insane this all is.”

“It would be called ‘All or Nothing,’” he explained. “That in order for them to ban amplified music they have to ban all loud noise that happens downtown.”

Kraster cited amplified music, motorcycles, sports cars, dogs barking, children screaming, parades, fireworks and festivals.

Suzette Jones, of the Sarasota-based business consulting firm Jones & Associates won’t let celebrating her 48th birthday stop her from joining the protest.

“I’m attending mostly to show support, to have a presence and show that people like me who live downtown want live music,” Jones said. “I think there’s a vocal minority; the city government doesn’t hear us because we’re not the complainers.”

The zoning code conflicts with Sarasota's noise ordinance, which allows amplified music during certain hours.

Many restaurants and bars offer live outdoor music during the hours the ordinance allows.

But on Feb. 8, Sarasota’s general manager of Neighborhood and Development Services, Gretchen Schneider, sent a letter to more than 200 restaurant owners saying the city had received numerous complaints about amplified music. The letter cited the zoning code and said no amplified outdoor music is allowed.

Many people did not know about the rules and have called her with questions, she said.

Commissioner Paul Caragiulo said he was surprised by her letter.

“The current way that it’s written in the zoning code is not acceptable and needs to be changed,” Caragiulo said. “Frankly, it’s just yet another sort of example of a zoning zone that’s better suited as an artifact in an archeology museum.”

Caragiulo began holding community discussions on the sound ordinance in October and said he was spurred to action by This Week in Sarasota writer and local activist Anthony Paull. Paull was one of the people asking members of the local music scene to turn out Tuesday at the commission meeting.

The debate over how the city should regulate sound has popped up time and again over the years. The conversation often pits people pushing for louder and later entertainment downtown against residents seeking peace.

Caragiulo plans to present a report to the other commissioners at the March 4 meeting and will ask that they begin the process of changing how the city regulates noise.

It will be good to find out what the commission wants, Schneider said.“If they’re going to be changing the code why would we pursue trying too strongly ... to enforce something we know is going to be changed?” she asked.

In the meantime, Schneider said Department of Neighborhood and Development Services will respond to complaints and enforce the city’s zoning rules. However, Schneider added, her department is not systematically “going after folks” that have outdoor amplified music while there is an ongoing conversation about the codes.

“Most of my clients won’t come to Sarasota because it’s so hard to do business,” Jones said. “It’s these old, old, rules that don’t work in today’s Sarasota.”

—Jessie Van Berkel contributed to this report.