The City of Tampa has backed out of public meetings about its controversial noise ordinance

Yesterday, city staff sent a memo to Tampa City Council saying that Mayor Castor's administration is backing out of public discussions about its controversial noise ordinance.

The ordinance became a matter of contention over the past two months.  It originally passed city council in January but is now in the process of repeal after a city council  vote last week. 

Ybor business owners were especially upset about the ordinance, and argued that the rules would hurt business in the party district. A lawyer representing them said that the details of the ordinance may be unconstitutional.

The ordinance hasn't been repealed yet, though, since council still has to hold a second vote on it on March 17.

The city was supposed to meet with those concerned Ybor business owners in upcoming meetings, to keep the conversation going. Instead, it sent a memo to council saying that the city would be doing just the opposite.

"To avoid further confusion among the public, the upcoming ordinance meetings will be cancelled until City Council provides staff with further direction," the memo from Nicole B. Travis, Tampa's new administrator of development and economic opportunity wrote.

The memo advised that city council should from here on out answer all public questions related to the ordinance.
The initial ordinance sought to ban all amplified sound in Ybor after midnight and allow police to fine businesses with no warning should they have outdoor music at certain decibel levels. It also restricted decibel levels to conversational volume between 1 a.m.-3 a.m., which is often prime time business hours in Ybor's historic and entertainment district. The city had fine tuned the details of the ordinance over the past two years, including recently.

City attorneys offered changes to the ordinance over the last month, after community outcry came to city's doorstep. But they still wanted to ban outdoor amplified sound after midnight, which was a sticking point for the councilmen who voted against it last week.
Councilchair Orlando Gudes, who voted to repeal the ordinance, told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay the public meetings should continue.

"I have to make some phone calls," he said. "They shouldn't be canceling the meetings."

Councilman Bill Carlson, who voted to keep the ordinance, still thinks that transparency is important in this situation.

"Whether or not we keep this ordinance, the public meetings are still important for the community and they should continue," he told CL.

Tom DeGeorge, owner of Crowbar in Ybor and one of the most vocal critics of the ordinance said that the abrupt ending of talks left him feeling dejected.

"I thought we were moving toward a situation that would work for all of us,"  DeGeorge said. "But now the administration is saying, 'We're going to take our ball and go home and put it all on council.' It's insane."