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Cesare Battisti club seeks to continue outdoor music

No complaints recorded during recent exemption

At a Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board hearing Tuesday on renewing permission for the Cesare Battisti club to play outdoor music, officials testified there have been no neighbors’ complaints during an exemption that began in July 2016.

The PLCB should rule in mid-September whether it will again exempt the club from the need to comply with PLCB regulations, which don’t allow music to be heard beyond the property line, in favor of city enforcement of the city noise ordinance.

That ordinance permits noise up to 60-some decibels at the property line for the zone in which the club lies.

During a previous exemption, beginning in 2013, neighbors complained eight times, according to testimony at the hearing, but none of those complainants were present Tuesday.

One of the most vocal of those previous complainants, Jack Quatrara, complimented the club over the phone afterward.

“If they can keep up with what they’re doing, I tip my hat,” he said.

The club actually held no outdoor shows last year, and this year, only ones involving a disk jockey — not a live band, according to a club spokesperson.

“If I listen real hard, I can hear it, but it’s not like it was before,” Quatrara said. “(Then) it would rattle the windows.”

Following that controversial time, the club made changes designed to reduce the level of sound coming from the outdoor performance pavilion, including re-orientation of the stage to direct the music toward railroad tracks in back, installation of sound-deadening curtains and limiting live shows to single performers with a keyboard or acoustic guitar.

The club also tests for compliance at the edges of the property with a decibel-meter, club council member Steven Harper testified.

City police and code officers enforce the Altoona noise ordinance using digital decibel meters, testified City Manager Marla Marcinko.

The city updated its noise ordinance earlier this year, setting decibel levels for different zones, according to Marcinko.

For a while, City Council considered eliminating the decibel criteria in favor of a “common-sense,” subjective approach that a previous city manager thought would hold up better against court challenges to officers’ expertise with decibel meters.

But the city stuck with decibel readings because they are ultimately more definitive and enforceable, Marcinko said.

Hearing examiner John Mulroy will make a recommendation in the Cesare Battisti case to the Liquor Board.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.

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