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Read the press release here.

Washington Square Park Officers Get Sound Monitor for Noise Complaints

 Washington Square Park patrol officers will be able to measure exactly how loud musicians and performers are.
Washington Square Park patrol officers will be able to measure exactly how loud musicians and performers are.
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GREENWICH VILLAGE — Washington Square Park is getting a new Parks Enforcement Patrol sergeant armed with a decibel meter to address the ongoing noise complaints that have plagued the park for years.

The sergeant will "be using the meter on a regular basis, going around talking to musicians, getting to know them, keeping them aware of what the levels are and how compliance works," said Sarah Neilson, the park's administrator, at a Community Board 2 parks committee meeting last week.

"The goal is voluntary compliance," Neilson added. "We're not interested in any kind of crackdown."

The idea came out of discussions with the city's Law Department, the Parks Department and the Department of Environmental Protection, which regulates sound issues.

The level for the park is "slightly more lenient than DEP's general rule," Neilson said. Musicians will get a warning if they are 10 decibels above the level of the area's ambient noise 30 feet from a given place. DEP's standard is 15 feet.

The idea, Neilson said, is to "apply science rather than my opinion versus your opinion."

The new sergeant will be responsible for supervising all of the Parks Enforcement Patrol officers in the park. He is going to be trained to use the meter, and then will instruct the other officers.

The officers will get training to be certified to use the decibel meters "so that it holds up in a court of law" if a summons is issued.

Some meeting attendees came with non-noise issues, such as Bruce Martin, who said he's been playing acoustic music in the park since the 1970s and is opposed to the performers who solicit money.

He made a point of saying the performers he was taking issue with weren't musicians, but instead had an "act" and "happen to be the noisiest people in the park and spoil it for everybody," referring to the twin brothers known as Tic and Tac, who do comedy and acrobatics in the park.

"I call them an act because they're not there to have fun. They're there to extract the tourist's money," Martin said.

Tic and Tac were present at the last CB 2 parks meeting where noise was discussed. At the time they said they felt targeted as "the only two black guys in the room."

READ MORE: Washington Square Park Residents Complain About Drummers at Meeting

The only black person in the room at last week's meeting took issue with Martin's statement.

"Are you speaking of Colin?" Bob Blacke, 68, asked sarcastically, referring to well-known piano player Colin Huggins, who is white and accepts money for his performances. "He does that. Oh, you mean the black ones that play jazz."

A deputy inspector with the Parks Enforcement Patrol explained that "the act of solicitation is not legal on Parks property."

"What the officer would have to decipher is if this person is accepting donations for the performance that they just did or they're actually soliciting for a service or something," the deputy inspector said.

The discussion of how performers received money ended with Blacke saying the conversation was tainted by racism before storming out.

Stopped in the hallway outside the meeting room, Blacke said Martin has the luxury of performing for free, but there are some performers who "have to eat."

"I am for the lowering of the noise levels, but the thing is that we have a bad habit of going in to destroy everything," he said. "There's no reason to come to Washington Square Park without the music."