From SUN on-line…
City pulls plug on Under Impact Pub
By Lisa Redmond, lredmond@lowellsun.com
LOWELL — After the city License Commission gave a local gay bar a warning two weeks ago to turn the volume down, one commission member said it was like “spitting in our faces” to have another noise complaint as recently as Wednesday night.
The commission on Thursday voted to pull the plug on the Under Impact Pub & Lounge’s entertainment license until the club at 160 Merrimack St., has professional soundproofing installed.
For the next week or so, until the soundproofing is installed, the commission said can be no bands, disc jockeys or jukebox — no music, period.
Longing for the days of the ‘Downstairs Café’? According to neighbors who attended the meeting and an account on SUN.com; the License Commission has suspended the entertainment license at the Under Impact until they install sound-proofing. Damn! There will be no more music flowing through the streets of downtown until 2AM. I was just getting used to the 60-decibels of base…LOL.
I was especially happy to read this; “I could hear the music from a block away,” commission member Raymond Weicker told Jennifer Delbrey, Under Impact’s treasurer, during yesterday’s hearing.
So! At least one of the commissioner’s has had the experience of enjoying the music from Under Impact; probably from seating at an outdoor bar/restaurant… I have enjoyed their music myself from my table at Fortunato’s; Café Paradiso; Mambo Grill; and Bad Dawgs…not to mention the occasional downtown sidewalk bench on a really nice night.
I know that there will be plenty of the usual, “you live downtown; what do you expect…”, comments about this, however, this particular situation is a very recent phenomenon and it is such an extreme case, even the License Commission has had to do something. There has been a bar in this location, I don’t know, forever…and when the building was converted to condos, (two business and two residential units), all was not perfect. There was music at night in the bar, the upstairs residents asked if they would turn it down a little after midnight; the owners did; communication & compromise…I love it when that happens! The rest of the neighborhood benefited too; you could walk down the sidewalk at night and hear music coming from the building; enough to let you know there was entertainment there, but not enough so you could still hear it when you got to John St. Ahhhhhh, the good ole days…
Enter the “NEW” owners…Whoa! Not the most open-minded, cooperative individuals you would hope will open a business next door to you. And this is a point that is often left out of this conversation…let’s say you own a fine restaurant across the street from this bar…your diners are spending a pretty decent amount of money to have a nice leisurely dinner…when suddenly, the music starts! I’m not exaggerating; I’ve experienced this, (and so apparently has one of the Commissioners). So, it is not just “new people in the neighborhood”, that are being effected; this place has a pretty dramatic affect on neighboring businesses. The owners of Under Impact should have some respect for other bars/restaurants, many of which have been in the neighborhood for a very long time, all of whom (despite the occasional spat) are considerate of one another…and if music hemorrhaging out of this place late at night is effecting the income of other business owners…that’s just not good for anyone.
There is one more thing that bothers me about this (and another recently notorious bar) situation…I don’t own a bar and I don’t have an MBA; but I’m guessing that when you lose your entertainment and/or liquor license, you must lose an awful lot of business = money. Instead of spending a bundle of cash to hire an attorney; install sound-proofing to the bar; wouldn’t it have been cheaper to have just turned down the music a little the last 18 times the police asked you to do it?
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