Alpharetta amphitheater drawing noise complaints

By Patrick Fox

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Alpharetta City Councilman D.C. Aiken pounded his fist four times.

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Robb D. Cohen / www.robbsphotos.com Dave Schools and Widespread Panic jam out during their performances at Verizon Amphitheatre. Not everyone is so happy about the music in their neighborhood.

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It was an unflattering rendition of what he heard at his home more than three miles from the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre on a  recent Sunday night.

"I love music," he said during Monday's city council meeting. "But at 11:30 on a Sunday night, my windows rattling, and I'm thinking of my neighbors across the street with kids ..."

Alpharetta and neighboring Roswell received 39 complaints during that Oct. 3 rock concert, which featured Shinedown, Sevendust and Bullet for My Valentine among others.

Most complaints came from Roswell, whose Kensington Square Residents Association has created an online campaign to protest the noise.

"We take it very seriously," said Trevor Ralph, general manager for Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre. "Our place in the community is very important to us."

So far this year, Alpharetta has received 62 noise complaints about the sound level at concerts. Of those, 47 came from two shows: Aug. 19 (Sheryl Crow) and Oct. 3.

Noise is a common complaint among neighbors of concert venues. Chastain Park in Atlanta, for example, pulls the plug on performers at 11 p.m. and has imposed a decibel limit in the past.

In Alpharetta, Ralph said, the amphitheater has a police officer on site for concerts. When complaints come in, the officer notifies himand the amphitheater staff tests sound levels at the property lines.

One problem, Ralph said, is that the staff can control only the volume on the lawn. Most tour groups control their own sound levels with their own equipment.

At the Oct. 3 concert, he said, amphitheater staff turned the volume off on the lawn, but complaints continued. Staff then tried to encourage the bands to shorten their sets, but the bands said no, Ralph said.

"We did what we could," he said.

James Drinkard, assistant city manager in Alpharetta, said the city is stumped.

There is no clear explanation of why some concerts generate more complaints that others, because sound levels have been comparable.

"We're chipping away at it, but we're at a point where we can't get a good reading of what's going on," he said.

Drinkard said Verizon is installing more sophisticated sound monitoring equipment that will enable the amphitheater to record sound levels throughout a concert, then check the readings against the times noise complaints are received. The equipment will be able to read across the spectrum, including sounds outside a human's hearing range, he said.

"We're not satisfied, yet we've made the situation as good as it could be," Drinkard said.

Councilman Douglas DeRito told Verizon's Ralph at Monday's meeting he wants to be realistic.

"We need to be honest and say we're not going to fix it 100 percent," DeRito said. "We need to work with you and try to address it."