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Citizen complaint of the day: Dueling musicians cranked to 11 in the Public Garden

Guitarist in the Public Garden

A concerned citizen gives 311 an earful about the situation in the Public Garden:

There's some great music in the Public Garden today.....BUT it's way too loud! There are competing musicians both with amps. You can hear this guitarist all the way over on Charles Street. Is anyone monitoring the decibel levels in the Garden? An acoustic-only rule would be a great improvement.

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Comments

Put a decibel meter app on your phone. They are available for free. Then when you report this to 311 report the decibel level. In Cambridge the busking laws reference acceptable decibel levels. I don't know if we have the same was here but we should. Prolonged exposure to anything above 87 dB is damaging to the hearing. Also, a 911 call could probably route you to the Rangers who could go over to the person and tell them to knock it off .

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You don't even protest to 311. Whenever those jackasses crank it so loud that you can't have a conversation 2 blocks away, just call 911. The BPD tend to shut it down quickly.

These idiots know the rules - they just don't care.

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No deafening blasting booming loudspeakers at City Hall Plaza events!
Please see also
https://www.boston.gov/departments/environment/air-pollution-control-com...

and
https://www.cityofboston.gov/boardsandcommissions/default.aspx?boardid=34
City of Boston
Boards & Commissions
Select a Board or Commission from the drop down list provided.
Policy Area: Energy, Environment, and Open Space
Board: Air Pollution Control Commission

We are trying to make this Boards and Commissions page better. Please help us by taking this short survey.
https://www.boston.gov/boards-and-commissions-feedback-form

Department:Air Pollution Control Commission
Contact: Carl Spector
Email: carl.spector at boston.gov
Authority: Not Applicable
Term: 3 years
Stipend: $0.00
Seats: 5
Regulates air and noise pollution in Boston and oversees the Downtown, South Boston and East Parking parking freezes. It holds hearings approximately quarterly to consider applications for parking freeze permits. View the Enabling Legislation
http://library.amlegal.com/nxt/gateway.dll/Massachusetts/boston/chapterviienvironmentalprotection?f=templates$fn=default.htm$3.0$vid=amlegal:boston_ma$anc=JD_7-2

Member .... Appointed .... Expires .... Status
Julien Farland .... [Date?] .... [Date?] .... Active
Gina Fiandaca .... [Date?] .... [Date?] .... Active
Bart Mitchell .... 8/22/2013 .... 9/1/2016 .... Active .... Flagged
Russell Preston .... 1/20/2017 .... 9/1/2019 .... Active
Virginia Tisei .... 1/20/2017 .... 9/1/2019 .... Active

Apply for the Air Pollution Control Commission Board
https://www.cityofboston.gov/boardsandcommissions/application/apply.aspx...

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Agree that amplification should be banned.

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There was a very loud, but not very good, drummer in the Public Garden the other day, who could be heard a few blocks into Back Bay. Acoustic-only is a good idea — and maybe a no-drumming rule, too.

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We DEFINITELY have to lose those "banging on upturned buckets" guys. What's the point of it? How is banging on upturned buckets a skill worthy of soliciting donations?

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Some of those bucket drummers are extremely talented and they aren't always all that loud. The ones who have great rhythm and use a variety of buckets are fun to watch and hear.

What I heard sounded like a guy with no rhythm banging one drum badly and relentlessly. It was not music or entertainment.

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With all respect to Charlie Watts, Keith Moon, Ringo Starr, Gene Krupa et al, even the most talented drummers are tedious to listen to when ALL one is listening to is drums for hours on end, which is how long these bucket clowns play. And they are not even playing on drums, they are randomly banging on plastic buckets and pots and pans and other objects which do not have the resonance of professionally designed musical instruments and are grating to the ear as a result. And very few of them have even a shred of the talent of the aforementioned players, or indeed any talent at all. So I am down with banning or severely curtailing the bucket brigade.

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My pearls!

Has anyone seen my necklace!!

This 311 complaint is so FWP I can't even...

(but great pun by Adam, as always)

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is getting SO freaking old. Can you be even a LITTLE BIT CREATIVE in your insults?

The only people wearing pearls these days are under 35. Pearls are trendy again, in case you haven't noticed, and you have not. Also: the Queen. But the Jackie O and Barbara Bush contingents have moved on to wearing artsy necklaces and scarves a la Cambridge.

When you are grasping for some kind of stupid metaphor for your inability to sympathize with actual residents having actual complaints, try using the other brain cell. Thank you.

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I believe this 311 to be the definition of a First World Problem and the atypical kind of "action" that wealthy white people take because it disrupts their idyllic state of "country urbanism".

Yes, I just created that term. It is born from the baby boomer elite that have recently moved into the Back Bay from the W towns, and expect the urban city to give them the quiet, lily white, "downtown" experience they had on their afternoon strolls through Concord sipping a chai after another restorative and healing yoga class before the packing the LandRover to head up to VT for the foliage and to check in on Tripp and his new (but heavily subsidized by mummy and daddy) venture of a locally sourced, gluten-free craft donut shop.

"People playing music? During the day? Heavens no! Don't these "artists" know that the best place to practice music is in a $800,000 custom built studio behind the three car garage? When will people EVER learn?"

(I do truly hope this meets your standards of repartee.)

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Right on target! I hope this phrase catches on. Aside from wealthy suburbanites this phrase also encompasses transplants and blow-ins, including college students, who are flipped out when the environment here doesn't match the idealized version they dreamed about back in Cowtown, Nebraska. Then they go running to the campus authorities that their delicate sensibilities have been offended and they need a "safe space". Or even worse, the ones that try to recreate downtown Cowtown here.

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Between the million-dollar shacks by the subway entrance, the drug war casualties, and the police not wanting to star in the next viral video, urban living will lose its charm, and there'll be another round of flight to the suburbs.

The flight won't be as white as it was back in the day, but that's just cosmetics. People with means will invariably get fed up with the nuisances and hazards of city living and move back out for the same reasons they did forty years ago. Around here, maybe even 40B will be repealed so that the suburbs can actually grow to accommodate that population. And the committed urbanists will have their noise and their cruelty free bicycle repair shops all to themselves.

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You obviously do not work near any place these jackasses set up shop. Not being able to do your work due to the sonic assault isn't a "first world problem": It is a PROBLEM

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No person shall, in any of the public grounds, use any device intended to amplify or broadcast sound using a megaphone, loud speaker, or any other amplification device,

https://www.boston.gov/departments/parks-and-recreation/parks-rules-and-...

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Enforcement? How?

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