If the Music's Over, We Might as Well Turn Out the Lights

Why do all of our brightest young people flee to St. Pete? That is one of the most common questions I'm asked. This is not an imagined phenomenon. Millennials have been making the jump north of the bridge for years and while there are many reasons they choose to go, Bradenton might take a cautionary tale from our neighbors to the south when it comes to noise ordinances.

Last Friday, I joined some friends at Motorworks Brewery in downtown Bradenton. One of my favorite local bands, Kettle of Fish, were playing a 6-10 p.m. outdoor show in the beautiful biergarten–the largest one in Florida. By the time the band took the stage, it was standing room only. The giant deck that frames a gorgeous 150 year-old oak tree was jam packed. Orders were backed up 45 minutes at a food truck, which was serving an impressive menu of delicious tacos that were well worth the wait. A cadre of servers hummed from table to table trying to keep up with customers.

If you listened closely enough, just beyond the bars of KOF's killer blues riffs you could almost hear the sound of cash register clinks. Not only at the bar and the truck, but the echoes of that night's tax receipts, along with all of the residual economic impact that would later spill out into the local economy through the paychecks of everyone from the band to the bartenders, to the cleaning crew.

Trying to imagine such free market prosperity on that stretch of 9th Street West before Frank and Denise Tschida built a multimillion-dollar craft brewery and pub in what had long been one of the most rundown and blighted commercial strips of Bradenton would have been nearly impossible. While the city poured money into boondoggle after boondoggle downtown and along the river, Motorworks was creating a true destination location at a spot that holds the potential of connecting the water to the underdeveloped Village of the Arts and overdeveloped McKechnie Field–which gained its first real walking distance after-the-game destination when the Tschidas cut their ribbon.

Motorworks' success is also an economic beacon to future investors who will no doubt develop ancillary businesses in the many available nearby locations in order to capitalize off of the growing crowds and increasing foot traffic. For their contribution to the local economy, the Tschidas should be given the key to the city, hell, maybe even a parade along 9th Street. Instead, they're being hassled by an antiquated and ill-conceived noise ordinance that threatens events like the one so many people were enjoying after work on Friday, as well as the future prosperity of such business in a growing city.

Manatee County is currently in the process of finalizing its noise ordinance legislation, and Bradenton will be adopting it, rather than developing its own new ordinance. Exactly how that plays out could determine the future of businesses like Motorworks, as well as Bradenton's ability to attract and retain the best and brightest millennials–a key challenge in its future economy.

Ninth Street West is designated as an entertainment district, but the current city rules do not allow for distinction when it comes to the sound limits–a paltry 69 decibels, measured from any edge of the property line. Motorworks' woes seem to be coming from a single neighbor who moved into the area after the business was operating and presumably knew that it would involve such sounds permeating the nearby neighborhood.

As we saw in Sarasota over the last decade, the advent of smartphones with decibel measurement apps have made what used to be an occasional complaint that left police officers with much latitude into a more nuanced weapon for those filing them. Older condo owners–who also knowingly and willingly bought units in new downtown SRQ towers, surrounding (and in at least one case even resting atop of) live music venues–waged a war on live music that chased away both musicians and music lovers, as well as the cash that would have spilled from their pockets.

Thanks to a handful of new venues in less uptight environs, the music scene has finally recovered and we currently enjoy perhaps the most talented roster of local music in the history of the Sarasota-Bradenton area. There are few things–other than good-paying jobs and a deep inventory of attractive and affordable workforce housing–that will make a small city more attractive to the lucrative demographic of 18-35 year-old professionals. Since we are doing very little about those other two quality of life issues, it would behoove us even more to hit the mark on this much easier one.

Under the new arrangement, which will reportedly include decibel readers, the Bradenton Police Department would still be responsible for responding to noise complaints. They would just have less flexibility in dealing with them. Laws, especially new ones, must be enforced as ordered in order to be effective. If a complainant is standing before a responding officer, holding up a smart phone showing that an ordinance is being violated, it limits the amount of discretion that can be utilized, as we saw during Sarasota's struggle.

The city claims that joining the county's ordinance will put the burden of defenses of legal challenges to the ordinance on the county, while giving sheriff's deputies the authority to pull over loud vehicles in order to enforce the ordinance (I’m also curious if it will impact a neighbor who routinely lets their very loud barking dog out at 5 a.m. each morning to serve as my unwanted alarm clock). This may be true but does not seem like a reason to avoid crafting a well-tailored ordinance of its own, based on a balance city officials want to enforce and defend to citizens and business owners.

A thriving downtown with a good live music scene that helps attract and retain younger professionals is good for the city–especially as it proclaims ambitions to develop one of the biggest blues festivals in the country. A series of symbiotic businesses growing out from large private investments that leads to the redevelopment of one of its most stubbornly-blighted, hollowed out stretches of urban decay is also good for the city, particularly since it has shown so little ambition to do so itself.

What's not good for the city is an incoherent strategy of sporadically throwing tax money only at endeavors that seem to benefit certain pet projects, politically-connected investors and one particular construction company at the expense of everyone else, who they let hang out to dry on issues like this.

There is a crowded city election coming up this November in which much of the old guard will be challenged by new blood. It should be incumbent on all candidates to explain to voters their vision for our city's future, and particularly on incumbents to defend their involvement in a status quo that's been, at its very best, underwhelming for young residents.

Does Bradenton want to be a sleepy city with expensive condos along the water belonging to wealthy retirees and a dilapidated urban core to house those who service them, or a thriving city that attracts investment, redevelopment and brain power? November’s elections will be a good chance for young residents to weigh in on that question.