Loud music from boats would be outlawed in Lake Michigan’s ‘Playpen’ and on Chicago River under proposed ordinance
Boating partyers in Chicago’s notorious “Playpen” area in Lake Michigan would need to turn down the bumping dance music under an ordinance a downtown aldermen introduced to the City Council on Thursday.
Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, said he simply wants to apply the city noise ordinance that limits the volume of amplified sounds on city streets to the boats in the Chicago River, the Ogden boat slips and the so-called Playpen no-wake area south of Oak Street Beach, where dozens of boaters congregate and tie their vessels together on warm summer weekends to drink and dance in a kind of Waterworld club scene.
DJs frequently set up big sound systems aboard boats in the Playpen, which can send booming noises echoing off nearby condo buildings and hotels across DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
“This ordinance is aimed to address an increasing number of noise complaints from neighbors who live along the river, slip and lakefront,” Reilly said. “If the noise ordinance is good enough for people on land, it should be good enough for people using and living along the waterways of Chicago as well.”
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Reilly’s proposal prohibits boaters in the river, in the Ogden slips southwest of Navy Pier and in the Playpen from using “any device or instrument that creates or amplifies sound, including, but not limited to, any loudspeaker, bullhorn, amplifier, public address system, musical instrument, radio, or device that plays recorded music to generate any sound, for the purpose of communication or entertainment, that is louder than average conversational level at a distance of 100 feet or more, measured vertically or horizontally, from, the source.”
Government boats, boaters who have permits for outdoor special events and people exercising First Amendment-protected free speech would be exempted.
Fines for violating the boating noise rules would range from $500 to $1,500 per offense.
Twitter @_johnbyrne
