Pittsburgh business owners urge city officials to take over noise complaint violation enforcement

PITTSBURGH — Bars and restaurants in the City of Pittsburgh are urging the city to take over noise complaint violation enforcement from the state.

In 2022, Pennsylvania eased restrictions on loud music at bars from 0 to 75-decibels outside of their property. That is everywhere in PA except Pittsburgh and Philadelphia.

“Zero is impossible,” said Allison Harnden with Pittsburgh’s Office of Nighttime Economy. “We just know, you can breathe and it’s more than zero.”

Alex Moser, Chief Operating Officer at Wigle Whiskey, said they’ve been investigated for noise complaints twice in the last two years.

“The investigation is not a light one,” Moser said. “We have to pull two years of receipts of everything. I have to show an employee roster; I mean, it is in-depth.”

He said that because the noise complaints are enforced by the state, there’s no communication with neighbors or police. He said it could sink their business.

“Because this gentleman doesn’t like when we have an acoustic guitar player playing, our whole business could go down and we’re not going to put up with it much longer, and we’re going to move,” Moser said. “We will leave the Strip District if this continues.”

“The current system feels designed almost exclusively to embarrass and punish us with zero interest in having a dialogue or actually working to solve complaints,” added Chris Copen, Owner of Bottlerocket Pittsburgh.

Businesses are asking the city to take over noise complaint enforcement from the state.

The big question is, who would be responsible for enforcing noise complaints in the city of Pittsburgh?

Police Chief Jason Lando said it would put a strain on the department.

“For us, to take this on would be a significant lift, and a significant burden,” Lando said.

But business leaders said police already respond to noise complaints at businesses and homes without liquor licenses. They feel that having local police enforce noise complaints at bars wouldn’t be a strain and would allow them to better work with the community.

“What we heard is that there isn’t bandwidth for the police to do this, but then we also heard there’s only been 27 complaints over the last three years,” said David Kushner, Founder of Trace Brewing.

Council members at Thursday’s meeting say they will continue discussions.

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