Beach bars, Florida music mixed up in noise citation
A radio host loses a fight against a ticket he received while broadcasting a live music show from a Sunset Beach bar.
By AMY WIMMER
Published September 7, 2003
TREASURE ISLAND - The way Pete Gallagher sees it, he wasn't just standing up for himself Friday morning when he faced a county judge in a courtroom. He was also defending beach bars. The last vestiges of old Florida. Homegrown folk music.
Pinellas County Judge Sonny Im listened, then ruled that Gallagher had indeed violated Treasure Island's noise ordinance. Had he not fought the charge, Gallagher would have paid a $31 fine. Now he will pay $122.
"He didn't have an acumen for Florida folk music," Gallagher said of the judge.
Gallagher is Tampa Bay's spokesman for Florida folk music. Most recognizable for the white hair he wears in a ponytail, Gallagher hosts the "Florida Folk Music Show" on WMNF-FM 88.5 and hosts a live Florida Folk Night show Thursday evenings at Ka'Tiki bar in Sunset Beach.
It's the folk night that landed him in Im's courtroom. The bar's live music has attracted 24 noise complaints since January, most of them for the Thursday night show that packs in as many as 100 people.
During one noise complaint visit to the bar July 10, a police officer handed Gallagher, who controls the sound, a citation. Gallagher, frustrated the complaints about noise are coming from the same residents, fought the violation on the grounds that Treasure Island's noise ordinance is too vague.
The ordinance states officers can cite someone for making "loud and raucous" noise. The city also has adopted the county's noise ordinance, which depends more on decibels than discretion, but the more subjective city ordinance was used to issue the violation to Gallagher.
"It's all about politics," Gallagher told the judge, "and not about sound."
In the prophesying over what will become of Sunset Beach's business district, Florida Folk Night at Ka'Tiki on West Gulf Boulevard sits at the apex. Two bars across the street, Nick's Seabreeze and Beach Nutts, sold for residential development earlier this year. Another nearby business corner will soon become condominiums.
Only Ka'Tiki and Caddy's Waterfront across the street remain as restaurants that offer live music.
"Any time you've got a business establishment that's close to the residential community, the potential for conflict exists," City Manager Chuck Coward said. Coward pointed to the Thunderbird Beach Resort, which is located in an entirely commercial district and offers live music. "I don't think we've ever had a noise complaint about the Thunderbird, but who's going to complain? There's nothing out there but the beach and people who are there on holiday."
With only a smattering of other businesses in the area, Ka'Tiki owner Fred Stern fears residents are getting the upper hand.
Stern recently faced the city's Planning and Zoning Board because he added a chickee to the Ka'Tiki without first getting his site plan approved. At the meeting he promised he would turn off the live music at 11 p.m. He said the bar hasn't received any noise ordinance citations since then.
