Sound Fix Feels the Noise from City Agencies
In the four years Sound Fix has been in business, it’s become one of the city’s best-loved independent music stores and a Brooklyn alternative to Other Music. About a year ago the store took over the cafe in the rear of its building on North 11th and Bedford and began using the space as a…
In the four years Sound Fix has been in business, it’s become one of the city’s best-loved independent music stores and a Brooklyn alternative to Other Music. About a year ago the store took over the cafe in the rear of its building on North 11th and Bedford and began using the space as a bar and performance space. The Sound Fix Lounge has hosted acts like the Mountain Goats, Beirut, Kimya Dawson, and Camera Obscura. But the venue has been silent for three weeks now and may be imperiled, says owner James Bradley, because city agencies have been serving violation upon violation on the performance space and have also started targeting the record store itself. According to Bradley, the Dept. of Health, the Dept. of Buildings, and the Police Dept. have all issued violations on the business, many of them requiring court appearances. “It’s been really overwhelming,” says Bradley. The record store owner believes the violations are rooted in complaints from a couple of neighbors who live in an adjacent building, one of whom, Teresa Polonski, works for Assemblyman Joseph Lentol. “I’m sympathetic to noise complaints, and we’ve done a lot to try to mitigate the noise,” says Bradley. “All this seems to be really excessive to me.” The Dept. of Health shut down the Sound Fix Lounge after serving it with three violations for operating without a food license; the first violation was issued March 6th, the second on March 8th, and the third on March 28th. “On 3/28 the establishment was swarmed by inspectors and shut down. I was advised by DOH that this was actually a Mayor’s task force,” says Mikelle V. Komor of Wagner Davis P.C., one of the attorneys working for Sound Fix. “When we appeared for the hearing on the first two violations on 4/1, the hearing officer at the Administrative Tribunal called the issuance of the two violations in two days inequitable and unconscionable.” Although Bradley tried to renew the license, the DOH has’t let him because it has records of unpaid fines from the space’s previous owners. Bradley says the establishment’s liquor license has been in limbo for nine months, and “one official said the agency was under pressure ‘from Albany’ to put us through the ringer.” Assemblyman Lentol says he “vaguely remembers” Polonski complaining about Sound Fix but “I refute that I have put any pressure on the city to close the place down.” Lentol says “everything’s that’s happened has come out of the community board.”
Meanwhile, about a week ago, the DOB affixed a note to Sound Fix’s door saying the record store and lounge were both in violation of zoning laws. Although both businesses are in an area zoned for residential use, the space has an active Certificate of No Objection that allows Bradley to operate them. A call to the DOB for clarification was not returned. Police officers have served about five summonses on the lounge in the past few months “for very flimsy things,” says Bradley. “The officers are always very nice, and one of them said to me, ‘Our captain has a hard-on for you guys.'” Attorney Steven R. Wagner, who is also representing Bradley, says what’s happening to the business “seems like a campaign of harassment. We will defend Sound Fix so that this well-known store and indie venue stay open.” As the Times reported today, Sound Fix’s problems are not 100% unique; record stores all over the city are having a tough time making a go of it nowadays. Outstanding issues with the DOH notwithstanding, Regina Spektor is scheduled to perform at the lounge tomorrow afternoon in celebration of Record Store Day. GMAP
Top photo by pauldini; other by Leia Jospe.
If the noise is really at that level, 12:26, then it’s easily measured and easily shown to be above what the noise code allows. Yet the city is going after them for food violations and other things. Which is it, a true noise issue or the neighbors just plain don’t like them there?
I think you have it backwards, 12:20 – the neighborhood was safe, which made it attractive to newcomers like you and the owner of Sound Fix. Having lived through the shit for so many years, the long-time residents had about five years in the 90s to enjoy the neighborhood they fought so hard to keep from going to hell before you made it “nice”. I mean come on, these people were fighting the closing of fire departments, garbage plants where your state park is, incinerators and every other piece of crap the city or state could think to park here.
Gentrification didn’t make the neighborhood safe for the old timers, the people who lived here through it all made the neighborhood safe for gentrification.
Its a little bit different when the noise moves under you. People there moved around, found a place (or more likely, were born in a place), and lived there for 20, 30, 40 or more years. Then someone came along and decided that they needed a little more culture and put on live music shows right next door.
And if you know the neighborhood, you know that most of the buildings are wood frame, so its not “the low hum of a bass creeping through the walls”, its a band playing in your bed room.
“there were people living here before you decided to make the neighborhood hip.”
Yeah, but it’s those who made the neighborhood hip who have made the streets safe at night. And who have made the property values rise for longtime property owners so they have a significant inheritance to pass on to their kids, or they can sell and retire on the proceeds.
You really want to go back to the way Williamsburg was before? Okay. Well you drive away enough of the cool amenities and then everyone leaves, and then you get your total shithole neighborhood returned to you.
Please. NONE of you are complaining about a safer neighborhood and NONE of those who have owned buildings there a long time are complaining about how valuable they are now. NONE.
I’m a “new” New Yorker, 12:17 (only been here two years) and I feel the same way. Not all transplants are like that!
I have news for all these NEW New Yorkers who seem to all of a sudden have a quality of life complaint with NOISE: EVERY NEIGHBORHOOD IS RESIDENTIAL IN NEW YORK CITY! There are people living on top of people. Quit whining or move to the country, seriously. I’ve lived here for 20 years, some neighborhoods more noisy than others, but you move around, you find a place… you don’t complaint about these wonderful contributions to culture. Or wait, you do. What’s more dangerous, triplewide babystrollers running pedestrians into traffic and off the sidewalks, or the low hum of a bass creeping through the walls? My god.
12:12, did you even read the article?
“When we appeared for the hearing on the first two violations on 4/1, the hearing officer at the Administrative Tribunal called the issuance of the two violations in two days inequitable and unconscionable.”
Sure, someone made it an issue for the precinct: some bureaucrat’s staffer who probably bought an apartment or condo nearby without bothering to check out the neighborhood first. These are the same types of people who move into an apartment above a busy bar and then call in noise complaints night after night. They are sucking the life out of this city.
So then you know that its not just a “cafe”.
The people doing most of the complaining are not the condo and wine bar types, they’re the people who have lived there forever. Remember, there were people living here before you decided to make the neighborhood hip.
The fact that the precinct is making it an issue means that someone has made it an issue for them – either too many 311 complaints, actual criminal activity (which I’m not alleging in this case), or political pressure. It also means that the owners of SF had plenty of warning and plenty of opportunity to address the problems before it reached this level of escalation.
I’m not saying its right or wrong, just saying what it is.
Just seems that the city has more pressing issues to deal with in WBurg/GP than to shut down a music store that so many people love.
I’d prefer we flood the zone with DOB inspectors on new construction and late night NYPD.