Fredonia Trustee Roger Britz has proposed entertainment permits as a way to regulate private music concerts in the village.

His idea, introduced at a Board of Trustees workshop last week, is a response to an early October Central Avenue concert that angered neighbors with its noise. “As part of my committee appointment to the zoning office, I sat down with Chuck (LaBarbera, Fredonia’s chief code enforcement officer) the other day and we were discussing the music that was going on on Central Avenue,” Britz said. “Chuck made a valid point, a good point, of possibly coming up with an entertainment-type permit for the village.

“A couple other small communities about our size do have a special use permit or a special entertainment permit,” Britz continued. “I also talked to the police chief (Phillip Maslak) about this. I mean, this isn’t just another permit that we want to add to our index of permits. … This is just kind of a paper trail to kind of get us organized on some larger events that may happen in the village and this allows us to have some sort of contact information regarding who’s hosting the party, who’s in charge of the party, and things on this line.”

LaBarbera said a permitting process would let the village know how many people were on a property at one time and who to go after if there was a problem.

“I think this could be effective if it was for groups larger than, say, 200 people,” Maslak said. “We currently have a noise ordinance in effect, and it’s in effect 24-7. My guys do their best at enforcing that and issuing warnings when it comes to that.

“You know, in reference to the 60 Central Ave. occurrence, yes, it was a larger event, yes, my guys did respond there twice. The first time, they issued a warning to turn the music down. When they went back the second time, because the music was back up again and obviously there were large amounts of people, they shut the music down and shut the party down.”

Maslak said he thinks the noise ordinance gives the police the ability to shut down such events. Regarding entertainment permits, he said, “I don’t think there’s a true need for that and my concern with that is, if the village were to issue the entertainment permit and the neighbors two houses down… were OK with that but it ends up getting louder, what recourse do we have when we show up and the people with the party say, ‘Well, we have a permit’?”

Trustee EvaDawn Bashaw agreed with Maslak on that point and said she thought that what is on the books already is sufficient. “I’m not sure that we want to get into permits. I just think we need to be more diligent and use more surveillance and use our police offfcers’ judgment to call it,” she said.

Trustee Scott Johnston warned that a permitting rule could force unintended things, such as weddings and graduation parties, to go through the process.

“You’re all making valid points,” Britz said. “My point being … you get into a large house party, and like chief Maslak said, you show up at the party and you have no control over who is actually running the party.”

Bashaw said they should be holding the landlords responsible.

Britz said, “My whole goal here was not to restrict certain parties and things. I understand if there’s a wedding or a graduation party and you have a band going on… a guy that wants to have a home concert behind his backyard and charge admission, this might have a little more effectiveness when the police officers show up and say, ‘Listen, you’re supposed to have an entertainment (permit) for a live band or a DJ.’”

Trustee James Lynden said zoning laws already handle things like backyard concerts. Britz and LaBarbera reiterated that the village should get notice if an event with 200 kids in a tent is held.

“200 kids with a tent and a band, in my opinion, isn’t really acceptable in any of the neighborhood areas,” Maslak said. “You can’t tell me anybody would be happy with that. So, I don’t know why we would issue a permit for something like that. You’re never going to make 100 percent of the people happy, all of the time.”

Britz said it was just a proposal and invited other village officials to look at materials he had gathered about the entertainment permit issue.