To a rendition of Ben E. King’s ‘Stand By Me’, musicians led hundreds of locals dancing and singing their way around Noosa Junction on Sunday in a peaceful, joyous protest aimed at keeping live music a feature of the precinct, opposing moves by noise-impacted residents to cut live music in the junction.
Organised by musician and Peregian Originals founder Jay Bishoff, festival organiser and community champion Oz Bayldon and Alan Kelly of Alan Kelly Music, the peaceful march and post-march rally in Arcadia Lane presented a display of solidarity in support of a local live music scene.
“I think we all agree this has nothing to do with noise pollution,” Jay told an applauding crowd. “This is the art of sound in community. Thank you for being my community.”
“I was fortunate enough to grow up in this town playing music,” Oz said in an emotive speech. “When I was a kid I could play three gigs a night. I could do the Villa and the Royal Mail and then I could go to the Surf Club. My young fella, who used to sit in that tree there, has none of those opportunities anymore. Pokies have taken over all our live space for our bands, now the places we only have refuge to play. You have to remember this is a vocation, an industry we’re talking about. We’re not talking about a couple of scallywags who walk into a restaurant and play music, upsetting people. This is an industry. It’s what’s brought communities together since day dot and if we stop this … I think our community’s already struggling to stay together as a community. If we stop music our community is going to go like a stale white loaf of bread, and we’re already going that way in Noosa because the money is killing us. Let’s keep our culture, let’s keep music live.”
“It’s such an important thing to our community, live music,” Alan said. “Imagine a world without music, what would it be like? It’d be so sad.”
Jay directed attendees to his lengthy social media post where he outlined the situation facing musicians and proposed a way forward for musicians and residents.
He said in recent years, Noosa Junction had emerged as the key, thriving, diverse, all-inclusive, unofficial ‘entertainment precinct’ in Noosa Shire and the driving force in the Junction’s evening and nightlife success story.
“Against increasingly difficult, and currently impossible odds – due to persistent, individual neighbour complaints and intense, ‘zero tolerance’ policy response from Liquor Licencing (Office of Licensing and Gaming Regulation), Noosa Junction venues have, until recently, somehow managed to maintain their ‘popular, but precarious’ live music programs,” he said.
“Since the small group of live music-opposing, adjacent neighbours initiated a petition to stop the live music altogether at Noosa Junction, Liquor Licensing’s harassment of our local live music venues finally reached the untenable point. Exhausted by relentless, authoritarian pressure, two important Junction venues were put into situations where they had to halt their entire live music programs. Since this time, all reports coming to me indicate the healthy, thriving night life is no more. Noosa Junction currently feels like a ghost town, a shadow of its recent self after dark.”
Noosa Junction Association marketing and PR manager Judi Lalor recently told Noosa Today that for more than a decade, local small businesses, musicians, entertainers and the Noosa Junction Association had been working together to activate and bring the village vibe to Noosa Junction.
“Live music is a big part of that offer – it’s our beating heart. It supports our local night time economy and local jobs. It brings people of all ages together.
“It’s very challenging times to be in any small business right now and hospitality is no exception.”
Judi said now the nightlife choices Noosa Junction has worked so hard for are under threat.
Noosa Junction resident Peter Stuehrenberg started a petition to stop changes to the Noosa Plan to extend night time operating hours in the Junction, and
in response a pro-music petition was created.
This month two Noosa Junction residents, Danica Allan and Peter Stuehrenberg have delivered deputations to council calling for a halt to the proposed amendments.
These actions come as Noosa Council considers amendments to its 2020 Noosa Plan contained on Fact Sheet 12 – Business and Entertainment Activities, in which council proposes increasing the current operating hours of food and drink outlets at Noosa Junction Hospitality Precinct from 12 midnight Friday and Saturday nights and 10pm Sunday to Thursday night, to allow them to operate until 12 midnight 7 days a week. It also proposes “to incorporate new performance outcomes and acceptable outcomes for both acoustic and amplified music (whether live or recorded)”.
In his deputation Peter Stuehrenberg called for the amendment to be removed from the Noosa Plan, though saying, “residents are not against live entertainment music but concerned about current and future management that is impacting their lives”.
Peter said residents were “shocked” in July to discover Fact Sheet 12.
“Will the current and future residents have to listen to music in their homes and bedrooms until midnight every night, listen to the noise associated with loud patrons and people leaving at night,” he said.
“Residents must wake up early to perform at work, how will school kids perform at school after lack of sleep.
“What choices will these surrounding residents have? Soundproof their houses or apartments or else complain to the authorities or OLGR.
“The proposed changes on Fact Sheet 12 bear the risks the current situation will be significantly worsened.”
Peter said the amendment should be removed and the situation deserved “a collaborative approach, with consultation, assessment, case studies to deliver a sustainable solution that provides the best outcomes for all”.
“A collaborative approach is needed to have an entertainment precinct that will not have unintended consequences,” he said. (Read Danica Allan’s deputation on P28)
Jay has called on council to declare the Junction an official entertainment hub as he said it has proved unofficially to be, and “commit to full responsibility of local governance of our live music sector, under simple, clearly laid-out requirements and processes” and for council to take over governance of the entertainment sector in a 6-12 month trial, under a proposed process.
“Firstly, Council and state government need to ‘get real’ with decibel level requirements and entertainment licences applied for and granted. The standard 75db makes lawbreakers of us all, audiences included. It is simply impossible for a small group to even enjoy conversation at this level, let alone have any live music in a semi-bustling venue environment. An 86db licence is the ceiling limit for any open-air venue on the coast. Again, this level is entirely unreasonable and makes it virtually impossible to create any thriving live music atmosphere. A feisty audience of 20 clapping at the end of a song will immediately exceed 86db, with no music being played at the time. If an audience dares to sing along with a performer, 86db is immediately exceeded, creating, yet another, ‘unlawful’ situation.
“We require 90-95db established as the standard for the new live music licences granted at Noosa Junction, on the heels of Noosa Council backing its own 2020 Noosa Plan for the Junction as a thriving hospitality/entertainment sector. This speaks to the new licences to be granted, and the ongoing, in-house decibel level measurements maintained by each venue, in weekly reports procured for Council.
“We understand select venues that apply for a licence to play at volumes between 90-95db will require renovation adjustment to help contain emanating sound.
“As put forward by Oz Bayldon, the erection of large ‘sound walls’, strategically, tastefully hidden with careful placement, will definitely help protect adjacent neighbourhoods from excess sound emanation.”
Jay said in meetings held in the past six weeks with council and nearby residents, the neighbours told them they did not want music played at the Junction after 9pm on weekdays and 10pm on the weekends.
Despite some Noosa Junction venues having been granted operating licences til 12am Jay proposed a compromise to operate until 10pm, as finishing time for all live music in open-air Noosa Junction venues, for Monday-through-Wednesday and 11pm Thursday to Sunday.
“We, the performers, local business owners and live music supporters do not wish to proceed with the longstanding ‘Us vs Them’ scenario, allowed to fester, as long as our local council is unwilling to step in and engage us all together as one community,” he said.
“On our side, we are willing to come to the table with open minds, with ears that listen, open to the possibility of reasonable compromise, as we find our way forward together as one community.”
“We propose council establishes and declares Noosa Junction as an official entertainment precinct. Next, any venue wishing to offer a regular live music program must obtain a licence from council. In order to obtain this licence, they must: a) install a 24 hr camera system b) A professional acoustic report is required to obtain a council permit. c) A live music venue must record DB (decibel reading) report hourly during live music performances, sent to Council weekly. In this way, we become a self-responsible, self-governing community, always endeavouring to behave with fundamental respect for each other, in spite of our recognised differences.”
At council’s General Meeting deputy mayor Brian Stockwell responded to Peter’s deputation, saying, “the process is that we have had staff go through all the submissions to the planning scheme and we’re currently going through a series of workshops where the major ones are discussed in some detail.
There probably will be weeks before you do find out the outcome”.
Cr Amelia Lorentson aimed to put forward a motion at Council’s Ordinary Meeting Thursday proposing a way forward to the situation. (Read her motion on P26)
