SURVEY
COLORADO ASSOCIATION OF SKI TOWNS
August 2006
Do commercial outdoor decks with dining and drinking create an issue in your town? If so, do you have curfews, noise control ordinances or any other rules to deal with it?
Background: We allow it in Park City, but make them close down after 10:00pm to protect the residents for unwanted noise. Since Historic Park City is in a narrow canyon the noise from decks gets amplified and annoys our many residents who live in the historic district. Now the business community (mostly restaurants & bars) are complaining about the 10pm curfew on the use of decks and of course the residents have come out in force to complain about relaxing this rule.
Aspen has many restaurants with outdoor dining. We have no curfews on
late night operation. To my knowledge, we get very few complaints
about late night noise from restaurants.
Avon has an amplified sound permit process for anything past 10 pm in town, or 9 pm in our mall and park areas. I expect that this will become more heavily scrutinized when we begin to see more infill development in downtown, and bet that as we get more "live work" style development in the core where residential tops ground floor retail that this becomes a hot topic.
Breckenridge has built into our noise ordinance a section that deals with exterior decks, patios, or balconies of a restaurant or liquor licensed establishment. Any exterior loudspeaker or amplifier cannot be operated between the hours of 10:00pm and 8:00am AND the deck or patio must be open for public use during the time a loudspeaker is being operated. In addition the noise cannot exceed a decibel reading of 70 from the real property boundary. This is part of an extensive noise ordinance we have in our Town. It is part of section 5-8 of our Town Code and it can be found on our Town's website at
www.townofbreckenridge.com
Dillon has a noise ordinance which reduces allowable noise after 9:00 Pm. Before we enacted this we had numerous complaints, now it's only a few, usually when a live performance needs to be told to turn it down.
Frisco has no special rules, no problems
Glenwood This is not an issue in Glenwood.
Mt Crested Butte Here is what our code says for our Commercial District:
Section 21-234: In the commercial district, no use shall be permitted or conducted in a manner which creates noise, objectionable by reason of volume, pitch, intermittence or frequency, which is audible at the boundaries of the lot. Specific noise performance standards may be prescribed by a conditional use permit.
And in our Nuisance Section of the code it says:
Section 14-1(3): (Definition of nuisance) Making, continuing, or causing to be made or continuing any excessive, unnecessary or unusually loud noise, or any unnecessary noise which annoys, disturbs or injures a reasonable person, or which endangers a reasonable person’s comfort, repose, health, peace and safety. For the purpose of this section, a member of the police department is empowered to make a prima facia determination as to whether such noises constitute a public nuisance.
At this point in the history of Mt. Crested Butte we are under construction with two out door decks in use only in the winter except for catered events and the third out door deck which is part of a Bar and Restaurant overlooks a 95 unit construction site. We have very few complaints at this time.
Silverthorne Not an issue
Snowmass Village We have an informal curfew of 10:00 pm if an establishment with outdoor service has amplified music, but for the most part this is not a big issue for us.