Fly Life
Does a New York DJ need a license?; Moby, Edie Falco, and Fahrenheit
9/11
July 2nd, 2004 4:45 PM
Just when you thought New York nightlife couldn't get any worse, it
does. JEREMY RODRIGUEZ is perhaps the first person in the history of
the world to get a ticket for DJ'ing. The Texas native was spinning on
June 5 at Cash Checking, a new bar in Williamsburg, when police paid a
visit to the venue. After spending considerable time speaking to one of
the venue's employees, the police asked for the DJ's ID and then walked
off with it for 40 minutes.
When they returned, they handed him back his ID—with a pink slip of
paper slyly folded underneath. It was a summons for Rodriguez, who had
only been spinning for a short time before the cops' arrival, to appear
in court on July 22 for "Operation of Sound Reproductive Device Without
a Permit." The section of the New York City noise code cited,
10.108.23, says a police spokesperson, allows a violation to be given
to a person operating "any sound production device in a public area,
even if it's in a bar. If music can be heard from public sidewalk,"
then there can be a violation. However, it seems a bit strange to cite
the DJ, not the bar. The NYPD spokesperson would only say, "I don't
know the circumstances."
Rodriguez, who is not the club's resident DJ, says that when he arrived
on the corner of North 3rd Street and Kent Avenue and got out of his
car, "I could hear the music, so it was kind of loud. The employee was
there, so I thought it was OK." He said the employee had come over and
turned the volume down a "significant" amount when the cops arrived.
The owner, THOMAS SANDBICHLER, says, "The violation was given because
we had the door open and the music spilled into the street. They
thereby said we were operating amplified equipment on the street.
That's not part of the license. It's a bullshit summons."
The bar's already tallied up several violations, says Sandbichler.
("They give out tickets like candy," he says.) The visits are fueled by
311 calls, which may become more frequent citywide if the mayor's plan
to overhaul the noise code goes through. (According to the mayor's
office, noise ranks number one in complaints to the 311 line, and
averages 1,000 calls a day.) While the mayor's proposing to do away
with some provisions that are too vague (such as limiting the standard
of judging a noise complaint as "unreasonable to a person of normal
sensitivities"), other suggested changes may turn out to be more strict
(such as throwing out the noise meter and going by the "plainly
audible" standard). Wait, I'm deaf—that might work wonderfully!
Meanwhile, Rodriguez, who just moved back to the States after six years
in Barcelona, is probably wondering why in the hell he ever returned.
