Albany commissioner involved in noise complaints that ended restaurant’s anniversary concert

ALBANY — An incident Saturday at the anniversary celebration of Harvest Moon restaurant and the Bo Henry Band involving an Albany city commissioner led a fellow commissioner to call for a review of the city’s ordinance for outdoors entertainment.

Although Albany’s noise ordinance, according to City Attorney Nathan Davis, allows for outdoors events to continue until 11 p.m. on weekends, an Albany Police Department officer arrived at the 2347 Dawson Road restaurant Saturday around 10:30 p.m. and told manager Billy Mann that the celebration had to shut down. Restaurant co-owner Bo Henry, whose band was performing at the time, finished the song he was playing and moved the celebration indoors.

It’s what the APD officer told Mann and restaurant co-owner Stewart Campbell that had many upset.

“The police officer said that he’d gotten a call from Commissioner Roger Marietta saying we had to shut the music down right now,” Henry said Tuesday. “The officer said, ‘I can’t leave until the music stops.’

“Now, I am a firm believer in obeying the law. You don’t stay in business if you don’t. But we were not breaking any law. City ordinances say we can play until 11 o’clock. We were not going to play even a minute after 11. But on one commissioner’s word, this officer was sent to enforce a law that does not exist.”

Marietta, who represents the city’s Ward IV, denied Tuesday that he’d ordered the police to stop the music at the Harvest Moon celebration. He did say, however, that he called police in response to “a number of complaints” he’d received.

“To say that I ordered the police to shut them down is not true,” Marietta said during a break at the Albany City Commission’s work/business meeting. “I passed on word (to the police) about complaints I’d gotten, but it’s ridiculous to say I ordered them to shut down. I don’t have that authority.”

Marietta’s and Henry’s accounts of the events Saturday differ considerably.

Marietta said police were dispatched to Harvest Moon “four or five times” to demand that the volume of the live music be lowered.

“Every time the officer left, they turned the music right back up,” Marietta said.

Henry, however, said neither he, Mann nor Campbell had been ordered to turn the music down. He further said the police came to the restaurant only once, around 6 p.m., before appearing at 10:30 and ordering a halt to the celebration.

“I know I didn’t see an officer except the one who came by at around 6 o’clock and then the one who came later and said we had to shut down,” Henry said. “(The first officer) told Billy (Mann) that there had been a noise complaint but she said, ‘There’s nothing I can do about it because the law says you can play until 11 o’clock. I just wanted y’all to know there was a complaint.’

“The next time a police officer came to the restaurant was at 10:30. I wanted to make sure that was right, so I called Billy and Stewart. They both said no officer had approached them about turning the sound down. I can’t imagine an officer would come out and make that kind of order without talking to one of us. And we were all three there all night.”

Marietta said he thought there was an “amicable” agreement to stop the music in response to the complaints.

“It’s not fair to blame me for this,” the city commissioner said. “I was just delivering a message. I even told dispatch I’d rather call in the complaint anonymously. I didn’t want to do anything to hurt Bo and Stewart, I congratulate them on their anniversary. I just think you have to be sensitive to the people around you in a residential area.”

Henry noted that outdoors events are rare at the restaurant.

“It’s not like we do this a lot,” he said. “This was just a big anniversary celebration, and we wanted to do something special. We will always follow the rules, and we will always be good neighbors. It’s just disappointing that something like this happens. Plus, we ended up losing money because of the police’s actions.

“I could understand if someone came up and said, ‘We had a decibel meter, and it shows that the music is too loud.’ But that didn’t happen. A police officer just showed up and said Commissioner Marietta had called and said we had to shut the music down.”

APD Chief Michael Persley said Tuesday the department’s practice is to give a warning to anyone who might be violating the city’s noise ordinance. He added, without referring specifically to Saturday’s incident, that if the noise level persists to a level that a decibel meter shows it is in violation of city law, the offender can be cited.

“Our practice is to give the individuals who might be breaking the law a warning,” Persley said. “They may not be aware of the level of the noise.”

Albany Fire Department Chief Ron Rowe, who also serves as director of the city/county E-911 center, said Wednesday he would compile a list of complaint calls surrounding the Harvest Moon event and, through state Open Records statutes, share them with The Herald.

Meanwhile, Ward III City Commissioner B.J. Fletcher called Tuesday for a review of the city’s sound ordinance in light of Saturday’s incident.

“First of all, I understand that police ordered an event shut down around 10:30 when our ordinance allows for outdoors events to continue ‘til 11,” Fletcher said. “I think we should look at that. I don’t see how expanding that time limit to later on the weekend would hurt the city. There are people who like to go to these kinds of entertainment events.”