\nBy STEVEN LEMONGELLO Staff Writer
\n\tPress of Atlantic City<\/p>\n
\tAtlantic City may not be turning out the lights just yet, but it may ask to turn down the music.
\n\tThe bass-pounding beach bars on the Atlantic City Boardwalk may need to get quieter if a bill stripping them of state anti-noise law exemptions is signed by the governor.
\n\tBut while bar owners are crying foul, state Sen. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, who co-sponsored the bill, said the bill would only return noise regulation to where it was in 2011, before the creation of the Tourism District.
\n\t\u201cThere are people who live along the Boardwalk,\u201d Whelan said. \u201cNo one\u2019s saying we\u2019re not having beach bars, no one\u2019s saying there\u2019s not going to be music at the beach bars or that they\u2019d have to shut down at 9 or 10. We\u2019re saying there should be a reasonable standard here.\u201d
\n\tThe bill is due in part to complaints coming from The Ritz condominiums on the Boardwalk, one side of which faces the Bungalow Lounge beach bar and the Bar A beach bar at Trump Plaza. Several residents of the building \u2014 once famously home to notorious city boss and party animal Nucky Johnson \u2014 have told Whelan the noise from the beach bars gets much too loud at night.
\n\tJoe Fredericks, a Ritz resident, said noise levels are \u201cterrible\u201d and that people are moving because of them.
\n\t\u201cThis is a residence, not a casino,\u201d said resident Loretta Kolioutas when asked if noise should be expected at the Boardwalk. \u201cPut it in front of a casino, it would be fine. This is like our front porch, and we can\u2019t sit here at night.\u201d
\n\tHowever, Nicholas Dounoulis, the owner of Bungalow, is critical of a law that he says would affect his ability to draw in tourists in the heart of the Tourism District.
\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s very wrong for a small business trying to survive,\u201d Dounoulis said. \u201cThis is a tourist attraction, a tourist destination. … I think Sen. Whelan should rethink this.\u201d
\n\tThe bill, which is identical to a bill introduced by Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, passed the state Senate on Thursday and has now gone to the governor for his signature. The Governor\u2019s Office did not return an email asking for comment. If signed, the bill would remove the exemption Atlantic City beach bars received from local noise regulations and place them under city noise rules.
\n\tWhelan was one of the original sponsors of a 2011 law that exempted all beach bars in the state that opened before September 2011 from the Noise Control Act of 1971. Whelan also co-sponsored a 2012 bill that specifically allowed Atlantic City beach bars that opened after that date to still be exempt from state anti-noise laws.
\n\tWhelan said that those bills were created because then-Mayor Lorenzo Langford \u201cmade it clear he wasn\u2019t interested\u201d in noise regulations in the Tourism District, so the plan was to exempt beach bars from the Noise Control Act, which mandates municipal enforcement, and then shift noise regulation to the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.
\n\tBut casinos objected to the second part of the plan, Whelan said, and noise regulation was never shifted to the CRDA.
\n\t\u201cIt was supposed to be a two-step process, and we kind of dropped the ball on the second step,\u201d Whelan said. \u201cThe first step was to more or less exempt beach bars from regulation by the city, because Mayor Langford said the city wasn\u2019t going to do it. But the second step never got done. … Casinos objected with the absurd argument that they should be unregulated.\u201d
\n\tWhelan said that he has heard complaints from not only The Ritz but the Ocean Club condominiums farther down the Boardwalk and residents near the beach at New Hampshire Avenue near Revel.
\n\t\u201cThat\u2019s a beach people go for tranquility, and I\u2019ve heard people say Revel is knocking the sand out of the beach (with noise from HQ nightclub),\u201d Whelan said. People going to a beach by a beach bar can expect some noise, he said. \u201cBut four blocks away?\u201d
\n\tWhelan said that under an agreement, the CRDA would purchase sound-measuring equipment but the city would then be in charge of using it for enforcement.
\n\tIn a statement, Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian said that \u201cHaving noise control back under the city\u2019s purview is a good thing.\u201d
\n\t\u201cAtlantic City is demonstrating we can regulate our own issues,\u201d Guardian said. \u201cAs mayor of a tourism town, I know the importance of working together with businesses to find common sense solutions to any potential issues that may arise. By having these responsibilities returned to the city, we will have that flexibility.\u201d
\n\tBesides Bungalow, which is not connected to a casino, other outdoor beach bars on public beaches in Atlantic City include Bar A at Trump Plaza, Landshark Grill at Resorts and Bally\u2019s Bikini Beach Bar. HQ at Revel is located outside on the land side of the Boardwalk.
\n\tBungalow owner Nicholas Dounoulis said that the music at his beach bar has been lowered in past months. But he is worried the music might be forced to be lowered \u201cto the point where it couldn\u2019t even be heard from the Boardwalk. We\u2019re losing casinos, and Sen. Whelan is not doing anything to help small business.\u201d
\n\tWhat Ritz residents don\u2019t understand, he said, \u201cis that if we go out of business because we can\u2019t compete for the Boardwalk trade and we\u2019re forced to close, all the taxes for all residents of Atlantic City will go up. … We\u2019ve cooperated with the new city administration, who are very professional and very pro-business. (But) the bottom line is this: Atlantic City is a tourist destination, and it needs to be revived, not creating new limitations for new businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
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