Also, Metal Sand Sand Sto Good afternoon, and welcome to Pittsburgh City Council's Cable Cast Post Agenda on Pittsburgh's Noise Ordinance as it relates to restaurants and bars for May twenty-eighth, twenty twenty-six.

And for the record, we're joined in person today by Councilperson Bob Charlin and online by Councilwoman Deb Gross and Councilman Bobby Wilson, and I'm sure we'll see other council members join shortly.

However, a few years ago, Allegheny County and Philadelphia were specifically prohibited by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania from having any sound above zero decibels emanating from these types of properties.

Unlike Allegheny County in Philadelphia, every other county in the Commonwealth enjoys a 75 decibel-level exception that recognizes the practical realities of running a venue.

The result here at home is a complaint-driven anonymous enforcement process that has left operators facing repeat citations, mounting legal costs, and in some cases the decision to give up live programming altogether.

While residents wait months for resolution and see little improvement on the ground.

So the bottom line is the current framework is not serving our operators, it's not serving our neighbors, and it's not serving the city.

Today's conversation is really just about understanding the problem in concrete terms from the people living it and learning from state officials and law enforcement leaders joining us today who administer the current system, charting a responsible path toward local framework that is fair, predictable, and worthy of the communities that it serves.

And so I am so thrilled to welcome our guests today.

We're going to take this in two different panel discussions because we have a lot of invited guests and a lot of experts in their field joining us today.

So on our first panel panel, I'm I'm happy to welcome our Pittsburgh Bureau of Police Chief Jason Lando.

We have Lynn Davies, the Executive Director of the Liquor Control Committee in the Pennsylvania House.

We have State Representative Lindsay Powell, and we have Sergeant Andrew Robinson.

And then we will start, and we have Alison Harndon, our nighttime economy manager.

So we'll start with this panel and then move to our next panel, which is a little bit more of the expertise from the operators of and managers and owners of our entertainment industries and our small businesses.

So with that, I would love to actually we can just move right down the line if that's easiest.

Each person can introduce themselves.

If you have introductory remarks prepared, that's fine.

I'm gonna ask us to keep it under five minutes just for the sake of time.

And if you if you if you don't, that's fine.

You can just introduce yourself with your name and your title and experience in this in this on this topic.

Sergeant Andrew Robinson, Zen 3 Police.

Uh worked Southside Entertainment Patrol for two years.

Thank you.

Jason Lando recently returned to Pittsburgh as the chief of police previously with the department for 21 years and was gone for the past five years, so still getting uh caught up on some of the issues and concerns, and I thank Sergeant Robinson for uh for helping out with that today.

See Representative Lindsay Powell, thank you so much, Councilperson, for hosting uh this post agenda.

This has been something that's been incredibly important to our district.

I have the honor of representing the 21st district, which includes Lawrenceville, the strip district, Schaler, Mobile Etna, Reserve Township, and parts of the north side, and we have some wonderful vibrant parts of the city that have a density of bars and restaurants that are nestled in our neighborhoods, and so we've really struggled with the challenge of balancing, making sure that we have habitable neighborhoods where people can put their babies to bed nice and easy on a Sunday night, but also we have vibrant bars and restaurants that people want to patron.

So thank you for taking up this important issue and excited to delve a little deeper into this challenging uh topic.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Lynn Banka Davies.

I'm the executive director of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Liquor Control Committee.

Um, and thank you for inviting me, and hopefully I can help provide a little insight into how we got here with regards to the laws and legislation and the complexity of the liquor code.

Thank you.

Hello, thank you for having us here today, all of us.

I'm Alison Harndon, uh nighttime economy manager for the city of Pittsburgh.

Um we are located, the Office of Nighttime Economy is two people located in the public safety department, and we're responsible for um being a liaison for food, beverage, entertainment businesses and the communities where they operate.

So this is an important um subject for us to dive into because we see a lot of um uh stress on both sides with residents and businesses.

Um our role is to help create a sociable city and one that can have peaceful coexistence with residents and businesses, but also be equitable.

And um, the current I I want to be clear that I don't think that people are not doing their job.

It's just they're operating in a structure that has a lot of flaws.

And um, I think that we can we can have what we we're looking for as we you know figure out where the the bugs are and and find a path forward.

Thanks.

Thank you all so much.

And so we were covertly um measuring the decibel levels of this opening conversation.

Um not really covertly.

The the the sound the sound noise meter was here, and just to give a sense of what 75 decibel levels is right now.

We're at about 69, 6869.

75 is not that much louder than we're what we're currently talking, the levels we're currently having a regular conversation.

Yes, there's some amplification here, but um uh just wanted to sort of level set what 75 decibels sounds like to the average ear close up.

All right.

So we'll start in with some questions.

I do want to, since we don't have like formal presentations, I would normally ask for presentation and then open up to my um colleagues.

I'm gonna start the conversation off if that's okay with a few questions for each guest here, um, open it up to my council colleagues for some generative conversation and questions, and then we'll move to panel number two as well.

So um we'll start with um state rep Powell.

From your conversations with operators and businesses, have noise complaints filed with the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement increased since the general assembly proved the recent changes to the noise provisions.

Do you know, or any if uh if Lynn, if you're able to answer that as well.

Um I don't actually I do have some um data that I received from the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement.

Um it's been pretty consistent, um approximately 10 noise citations yearly.

Um some of those are actually outside the city of of Pittsburgh, um, but no, it doesn't.