Amid a flurry of year-end legislative activity, the D.C. Council last week passed a pair of measures that seek to regulate sound in public spaces. 

These bills are the product of a years-long debate over managing public sound in D.C., one that has often pitted real-estate developers and residents of gentrifying neighborhoods against artists, venues and longtime residents.

Both the Harmonious Living Act and the Amplified Sound Mitigation Act will now head to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s desk — and then, a 30-day Congressional review period, as mandated by D.C.’s limited home-rule charter — before they can become law.

The Harmonious Living Act was introduced by Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau and co-introduced by Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto and Chairman Phil Mendelson. The Amplified Sound Mitigation Act was introduced by Mendelson and was co-introduced by Pinto, Nadeau and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds. The bills would represent the city’s first new regulations on sound in public space since the 1970s.

The two pieces of legislation approach the same issue — noise control — from opposite angles. The Harmonious Living Act seeks to impose soundproofing standards on new residential construction in sound-rich parts of the District, and incentivizes soundproofing retrofits in existing buildings. Additionally, the act requires building owners to make certain disclosures in leases and home sales regarding nearby entertainment venues or established cultural activities, so that incoming residents can anticipate the level of noise in their new neighborhoods. 

The Amplified Sound Mitigation Act, on the other hand, regulates amplified sound — including from buskers and other street performers — at the point of performance, setting allowed decibel levels for performers and introducing an annual permitting system for buskers. Enforcement responsibility is to be designated to the Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection, with nighttime enforcement also provided by the D.C. police, according to Chris Naoum, a longtime local musicians’ advocate and founder of the Sound Advisory Task Force for the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA), who has been involved in the debate around sound regulation since 2018.

The bills represent the latest chapter in a lengthy, often-contentious debate around noise regulation in D.C., said Naoum, who is now on staff at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. 

About six years ago, Chairman Mendelson began pursuing legislation that would regulate amplified sound in the city. Early proposals included fining musicians $300 for noise violations, which could have had “draconian impacts” on their livelihood, Naoum said, including potentially eliminating busking and outdoor performances altogether in bustling locations like Chinatown.

“They didn’t put out a call to the community,” Naoum recalled. “They just heard complaints from residents, and they did nothing to reach … the music community.” Partly as a result of this approach, the proposal was met with vociferous resistance from the city’s musicians community.

By 2019 the council had scrapped the proposed legislation, saying it was going back to the drawing board. But shortly thereafter, tensions between real estate developers and new residents, on the one hand, and longtime residents and artists, on the other, boiled over when residents of a luxury apartment building in Shaw sought to force a shopkeeper — who has played and sold go-go board tapes out of his store at  the corner of Florida Avenue and 7th Street NW for over 25 years — to keep the music contained inside the store. The ensuing conflict birthed the hashtag #DontMuteDC (and the Don’t Mute DC collective) as well as the Long Live Go-Go organization, and in many ways it helped to shape future discussions about amplified sound and regulation in the District.

In the years since, sustained advocacy has led to the twin bills at hand today. Naoum described them as something of a compromise between those who want heightened sonic regulation and those who want to protect the rights of performers.

One key component of the proposed laws is what Naoum called the “agent of change principle,” which holds that new residential spaces are themselves responsible for soundproofing when they are built near venues, and not the other way around. Naoum said he was excited that this principle will help protect historic venues when their neighborhoods are developed. “I’m glad that idea has now officially been adopted into legislation,” he said.

Going forward, Naoum said, it will be up to the District to implement and enforce the new laws. This could amount to a significant challenge, since there is no citywide department in primarily dedicated to the regulation of entertainment permits and rules enforcement. “If the [Bowser] administration wants to step in and tell all their agencies to get on board with this and bring people together to put this plan into action, they can do it,” Naoum said. “But without full buy-in from the administration, it seems like both these pieces of legislation are going to meet with lots of implementation hurdles.”

Still, Naom said, if the city does commit to enforcing these laws as written, it could ultimately serve as a model for other cities, many of which are experiencing similar challenges. “Hopefully,” he said, D.C. “will inspire more protection for venues across the country.”

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