Crazy Noisy

Downtown Charlottetown isn’t equipped for the volume of cars either.

What time did the (loud) music actually stop?

I heard it over in Bunbury near Fullerton Marsh! I used to live at 108 Water Street. Summer had become unbearable and we had to move out for this week and for the festival of the Fathers.

What will happen is that people will not longer be able to live downtown. When residents leave then crime etc rises - then no tourists.

It’s not just the festivals but the clientele shift at midnight at Peakes Key. Mass drunkeness and loud music are the aim. The result was that at the height of the summer with windows wide open to keep cool, there was a procession of drunks yelling, vomiting and defacating outside our window. The girls were the worst - languae that would make a sailor blush usually disparagig a rival or the size of their partners equipment.

It wears the residents down. The official position is that Peakes key employs a lot of folks and is good for tourism. The reality is that the midnight crowd are mainly locals. The risk is that we end with a commerical wasteland and bad behaviour and crime blight the waterfront and we end up with the opposite of what we wanted in the first place.

It’s only 3 days a year and the economic impact can be felt for moths on the downtown and the island in general. People from out of province came to our island to see these bands and spend their money. It’s worth it! I put up with it last year, it was not that bad.

I will be sending an email to them above addresses, supporting them.

You do live downtown. Mosts cities have loud street noise all hours. For me the noise of garbage and recycling trucks early in the morning where I live is a tradeoff for the all the benefits of living downtown (not in Charlottetown). What’s the alternative? Limit hours and effectively force the special events and bars out of the downtown core? That doesn’t help strengthen downtown business. But it would help to encourage car-centric suburbia.

I have to disagree on the concert. Altough I personally can’t stand any one of the acts that performed for the week end (Haywire aside, that’s a whole different ball park), I think it was a great idea. It promoted celebration, tourism, and all around good times.

However, I do agree with the levels of noise and ongoing partying that go with such events, as well as the summer on the water front. There needs to be more enforcement. I live up by the univeristy and so I know what it’s like. Not only is summer loud, but so it all year round. I’ve gotten used to it though, and I can brush it off.. However, some of the local elderly person’s have not, it’s a bit much.

I can certainly image that Stratford heard much of the concert last night. Sound travels over water, I’m glad it was them and not me. I heard just enough being up in my neck of the woods, let alone being right there. No one should ever force Nickelback on anyone.. that’s just cruel. We could get better acts.. Hello.. “Guess Who”.

now just a second grandpa. you know, pete, i’m no fan of the skankfest that passes for entertainment here in our town and you certainly have the right to complain about the noise–but you can’t tell me you didn’t know there was a concert going to go on last night. i mean advertising… warning… it’s a notice either way. and there was plenty of it.

i’m not saying the festival hasn’t grown. i’m saying you don’t have a right to be bugged by the noise… i’m just saying you *were* warned.

One point to be made in support of Peter’s position is the unique lack of distance between homes and the chosen location. In Halifax the side of the citidel is buffered by the Commons, the Public Gardens, business property, etc. The north end is buffered by the hill itself. In Ottawa, these things are always around Parliament, the Astrolab or the National Art gallery where no one otherwise walks at night. Is what Charlottetown is doing stunned more due to the location rather than the event? Stick it at UPEI next time and set up shuttles.

Even better would be to stick in in the country someplace and set up shuttles.

Our worst weekend was the one where about 8am on Sunday having got to sleep at about 4, a “Come to Jesus” folk Rock group held an early morning concert. The police were great and hustled them away.

UPEI has great parking and open fields where tents and sound stages could be set up. Not that many fogies live up there.

Alan,
In Ottawa, these things are always around Parliament, the Astrolab or the National Art gallery where no one otherwise walks at night.

These things are not always around Parliament, Bluesfest occurs just off of Elgin Street, and Majors Hill Park (where most other concerts occur during the year) can be heard well around the Byward Market where a good chunk of Ottawa city residents live.

Also, where is the Astrolab?

Oh, and a new thing seems to be having concerts on the grounds of Rideau Hall. Adrienne and J.R. don’t seem to mind.

I have a good idea, why don’t you have all the Festival of Lights, Fathers etc. in Moncton????

And “no one walks around the art gallery”??? yeah, Sussex Drive is a real hole.

As always, it’s a choice to live downtown. Love it or leave it.

Lana: I meant a distance in Ottawa from Parliament comparative to the distance from the Nickleback concert to Ruk’s house. Sure there are the streets in the market, etc., but that would be somewhere out about Belvedere in C’town.

I call Astrolab the open air concert setting behind the Art Gallery with the statue of Champlain holding his astrolab up in the air. You are right with the Bluesfest and the north end of the Glebe - but as I am going to see Elvis Costello there Saturday, I don’t care. If Charlottetown could draw him who would care?

And Sussex Drive is kind of a hole in a “fat city” kind of way - far too many tax dollars spent on far too few citizens, middle and senior bureaucrats strolling at lunch. Made me retink the meaning of “equalization” when I first saw it.

I’m with Peter on this. And how were we warned? I read newspapers, watch the local news and have 100 co-workers who talk about all kinds of non-useful things like that. The only thing I heard about it was the noise itself, so I’ll take this year’s noise as next years warning… except I’m moving and that noise is a deciding factor.

A more logical place to put the concert is a rural setting. It’s much faster to get there, like say, Oyster Bed Raceway and there’s only a few hundred residents to piss-off. The downtown of Charlottetown is too difficult to navigate unless they remove about 500 stopsigns and teach some of the licensed drivers how to drive.

Yesterday while I was at work a particularly loud band was playing across the parking lot. Inside my building the only audible sound from them was the bass and drums. I did a 14 hour shift and had about 10 hours of “Bumm ka-boo-boo thumm umm boom boom”. I now understand “Those Drums!!! Stop those drums”. After a day of that I was about in tears when the noise began last night.

Alan you need better Ottawa geography.
Downtown public servants “stroll” on Sparks Street (which is the real hole of the city) or in lovely Hull (now Gatineau).

The money going in to Sussex (from Rideau to say the Art Gallery) is coming from the US Embassy who now pays to block one of the lanes off.

You don’t need to lecture me on distances in Charlottetown. Longtime friends the Rankins live directly facing onto Confederation Park, so spare me the contest on ‘who lives closest to the park’.

Lana - you will know I am “lecturing” you when I put on the blue hat. You must be having a bad day. I was just clarifying myself. You are also forgetting the civil servants at Foreign Affairs, etc. You can apologize any time.

I’m surprised you can fit a hat on your inflated head.

DFAIT is up by the NRC and hardly in the shopping/pedestrian part of Sussex.

After months of self-imposed silence (for which I’m sure everyone is eternally grateful) I gots to weigh in on this annually recurring issue. I live downtown and I’m quite prepared to share the experience for a few days with everyone who wishes to come to this festival. Its great for Charlottetown, well organized and improving every year. As witnessed by the buzz (my kids were very excited by NB’s appearance) and attendance, hundreds throw themselves into the organization of the event, thousands of Charlites, Islanders, Tourists and CFA’s attend and have a great time. Its good for the waiters, waitresses, business owners and civic governements; and it only lasts for a few days. The organizers have bent over backwarsd to accommadate the local neighbiourhoods.
It would not work at UPEI. Shuttle buses for 8,000 is not a workable plan for any number of reasons.
I must ask the question of you Peter “Were it Fred Eaglesmith, amps at 11 in front of the masses, would you be so churlish?”

I live on the corner of Great George Street and Water Street. I can see the stage from my front door, and listened to most of the concerts from the comfort of my couch. I do not have an issue with the concerts, though I do not think the Landing Park is an adequate, suitable, or safe place to hold events for thousands of people. I do have an issue with the severe lack of policing, and the lack of planning for obvious (?) things like temporarily closing roads when the concerts finish to let 10,000+ leave safely and quickly (plus more adequate garbage collection). The police were completely absent less than an hour after NB finished, when the fights started. Ambulances couldn’t get through; the maze of fencing was difficult and dangerous to navigate in the dark. Safety for concertgoers and residents was clearly not a priority.
The biggest problem we have as residents is not the concerts - it’s the consequences two hours after the concerts end, when the leftover partiers add to the Peakes Quay madness, and then you get the events described by Rob. This happens to some degree every Friday and Saturday night, and it is local talent. This past four days have been the worst so far. My consolation is that I won’t have to live here forever - which is a shame.

Communities need some basic ingredients; yeah, ingredients sounds like a good word for now.

Clearly among societal ingredients, those which produce entertainment or economic activity seem to cause the most fuss. I recall numerous spats on this topic making it to the news. A few years ago Catherine MacKinnon wanted a play house and was resisted, the “Public Gatherings Act” (or whatever it was called) remains one of PEI’s most curious and darkest moments, and there are plenty of other examples.

Pushed up against what some want to do is an equal and opposite reaction. Stoking the boiler for the “no” side is a strange and wonderful phenomenon. See, it’s almost as if people are beamed to a parallel universe the moment they give birth or have caused someone else to do so. In this new universe, everything which gave meaning to their lives as youth is now “revealed” for its ability to stab menacingly at the unprotected underbelly of family / church / community / neighbourhood (pick any one or make up a dozen of your own).

Geezuz, my father (still tougher’n a boil’d owl) and his mates went to slap Hitler around and did some living along the way; fast forward a few years and these guys end up reminding draft-age teenagers to “look both ways”. I’ve done this and my kids will too.

It won’t change. It is a mark of maturity when a person can act contrary to his or her own best interests in a given situation for the betterment of another. It’s an act of courage when it’s done to benefit a community, and marks pure guts if done by a businessperson. Collectively we’re simply not that mature.

As a group; we’re immature. I think that bears repeating. We identify with our own cohort and we’re listened to only when speaking in support of it. Those who want it quiet will be pounced upon by other “quieters” if one dares concede “it’s only one day a year…”. Nope, you stick with the cohort, spout the party line, and hold your own or become part of the problem. It removes the possibility for reason you see. Anyway it all comes down to a situation where the (borrowing from a

to change the topic just slightly. it’s plain the problems of the concert and the festivals illustrate the deeper problems and opportunities of living in a city. as the suburbs leach our downtown core of business and resident, but use it more and more often to serve their entertainment needs at our expense, i wonder how long it’s gonna be before the townies throw up tolls on the north river causeway and the hillsborough bridge. passes for townie everyone else pays a twoonie.

Lana: apology accepted - however curiously phrased - and Foreign affairs is still a big brown building on Sussex. My hat size remains the same and for me to make reciprocal corporeal observations would be rude and politically incorrect. Put some ice in the old soda.

Lana: as we are having a discussion about the location of a building which is a simple fact which I can clarify my statements on without recourse to ego, swelled head or whatever else you might suggest, this is the building I am referring to on Sussex. I am sure there are other DFAIT locations so please be assured I am not lecturing you. The building and its staffers who go elsewhere at night do exist.

Tolls… I love it.

Alan, enjoy your long walk to the DFAIT building while you’re in Ottawa.

The most important thing to remember here that: so what, we had a few nights of “noise”. Yeah, there were fights after and it got out of controll. But as far as I know there were no serious injuries (please correct me if I’m wrong)..No excuse for the lack of policing, but it went off fairly well.

When it comes right down to it, how can we complain about a few concerts that help celebrate our country when that’s all it is?? In some countries people are shot to death for their free thinking, shot to death because of their religion, shot to death just for going outside after dark. We are blessed to live in this country and I am thankful everyday. So if you have to and want to complain about a few nights of noise, so be it. But remember that when the noise is over, we can go back to living our day to day lives in freedom and peace.

Peace - Some children have never even known peace. Be thankful you and your children do.

Happy Birthday Canada

On the City and concert, when would you figure the rock concert series became the way a city celebrates? I would think no earlier than mid-80’s. I know when I was a kid in the early 80’s Halifax was considered dead in the summer until the tall ships festival in ‘84(?). There are great municipal celebrations like First Night in St. John’s and Regatta Day there, too, that are not rock concerts even though they are great social and rather boozy events. Why does the celebrating in Charlottetown have to be a “Molsons presents” kind of thing at all?

This is a classic example of “not in my backyard”. No wonder the federal govt (Transport Canada)wants out of port management. The waterfront has been a place of business for generations, but all of a sudden, people want parks, trees, controlled residential development etc, which is in direct conflict with warehouses, trucks and commerce. As a result, the govt. turns the responsibility over to the community…and why not? The feds cannot carry out their mandate if people complain about ugly storage facilities required for the nature of their commerce.

So, we lose this industry, which is fine if that is what we want. I enjoy waterfront renewal as much as anybody. But, there is a dark side(borrowed from Star Wars)…parks bring people, sometimes large amounts of them, sometimes “dead-enders”, too. Fights, drinking, cursing, dog poop and all the rest. People ask for downtown renewal, but are unwilling to tolerate what comes with it…crowds, PFA’s etc.

What really irks me is when new homes are built in farming communities, then the homeowners start to complain about the smell of the barn soon later. Jeez, what did you expect?

I am for better policing and zero tolerance for public drunkness or lewdness, fighting and property damage, and for using this newly claimed resource, public waterfront parks, for public gatherings, and if the public responds to the showcasing of the waterfront in the thousands, all the better.

Ritchie - Good for some business owners. I expect (and don’t begrudge) to lose business to special events, weather, etc a few times a year, and this has become one of them. It cuts my business by more than half, my parking lot more than fills up with non-customers, etc., one of whom parked sideways in a disabled spot and blocked one of my customers in this week. We’ve had fights in the alley with people banging on the exit door and disrupting a screening. I doubt I’ll open next July 1, and if my memory were better wouldn’t have done so this year. I think the Festival is great, I don’t think downtown is big enough for it.

Why move it to UPEI? The waterfront is a great place for the event. I could see if this was a year round thing, or even if it took place five times a summer but it’s not! It’s held once a year for 3 days… My god! I live in downtown Halifax close to one of the main the dock yards and I wake up every night from the sound of trains (via rail is one block from my door) and boats to busses and cars. I deal with it and get all the sleep I need.

This happens every year, on the same weekend, at the same location for the past several years. I think it would be a gross waste of time and resourses to have the city send out letters to down town residents to say “hey you know that concert that is here every year? Yeah well, it’s happening again, sorry”.

Alan’s friends both wonder more about his shoe colour than his hat size…

I agree with Andrea, what a waste, We all knew this was coming, I heard about it for months. Where have you all been??

And besides, Peter, we’d hate to have to cut down your tree for paper for these letters.

Why is a rock concert inevitable? Are there not better options?

The Fisherfolk knew also that the cod were gone. Why were they so enraged whn DFO annoneced the closure? What they objected to was some chap from Ottawa coming down and announcing to the public that the game was over.

It seems to be rule of humanity that if we are to be f*cked and even if we know that this is coming, we need to be kissed first - hence Peter is right - to apologize up front or at least to acknowledge the discomfort and the sacrifice that the residents make upfront is about grace and good manners and allows for acceptance.

If the CC was to write inadvamnce of th festival and thank the residents for what thye will most assuredly give up for the rest of us - that would be ahelp. I would like to pick up on another comment - how pathetic the police are.

I went to council 3 times in 4 years to ask for better policing and this was promised but they fail every time. Why do we have to put up with fights, shouting and property damage. Too difficult? Anyone been to New York in the last 4 years? Really safe especially around Time Square and the subway. It can be done. Been great for tourism. Why are our police such wankers?

McCormack (Started IMG…that company with the idea to boost marketing by focusing on the fact nobody knows who they are)got his start with golf great Arnold Palmer and participated in a hateful conflict with Jack Nicklaus for many years which was eventually resolved. He also worked with Gary Player and was once considered the most powerful man in sports.
His secrets of success, with interesting comments about your first day as the boss.

They just had a city councillor on CBC, who said the concert was as inevitable as the weather so people shouldn’t be surprised.

It was the 8th “Annual” Festival of Lights. That’s pretty decent notice.

The inevitablility of Nickleback. Good public policy making.

The fact is that Charlottetown is ‘Alive’ for one weekend a year, and it happens to be the July 1st celebrations. I suppose, to a lesser extent, people do make the effort to come in town during Old Home Week.
While I agree with you Alan, that the city should try to make the downtown citizens more aware, it was very hard to miss the billions of “Festival of Lights” posters around town.
Everyone knew what NB/Default was playing, and where they were playing, no offense, but playing ignorant isn’t helping. And for the record, I could hear Blue Rodeo and Jimmy Rankin from my house, which is by the corner of Nassau and North River.

”..are there not better options?”

I woudl say not, Rock Concerts are fun, and it was proven by the ticket sales this weekend. Canada Day should be fun, I think adding some spice downtown for _one_ weekend out of the year is fair. It IS downtown afterall, where things should happen. The buzz brings in much needed business to local shops, and I have a hard time believing that some people are actually complaining about it.

The traffic issues could be addressed, with some makeshift parking lots and shuttles.

This may sound dumb, but why don’t they turn the stage around? Right now it points straight at the city. Why not point it at Stratford, or Fort Amherst?

Brian: Peter is on about notice. I am not so interested in notice as the choice of the rock concert. I am wondering aloud whether and whither the rock concert (aside from a tour of the landmarks of Ottawa). Rock concerts are fun for folk who like rock concerts minus those who got the crap beaten out of them after by drunks. For others they are not fun. I myself like rock…adn like to rock. I, in fact, rock. But when I rock I do so in a location not to offend - the cottage, the car - unless my goal is to offend. Being a former punk, that is not unimportant. Surely, however, it is acceptable to rock in a way that is inoffensive. Beyond rock, why not an intellegent music concert focus on blues, folk or jazz - all big money makers in other cities. Must we rock as if rock is all we may do? Must we bow to purveyors of rock and the standard rocking plan?

The following from CBC PEI is somewhat extraordinary as it appears to place landholders (described as “residents”) interests and even rocking after tourism:

Stu MacFadyen, the chair of the economic development, tourism and special events committee took calls all weekend from people living near the concert venue. He says he reminded residents although the music is very loud, the festival only comes along once a year. Some were concerned about the noise level and we’re looking at that to see how we can move this. We’re not going to be able to please everybody but we hope that the residents in that area realize that every July first something of this nature will come,” says MacFadyen. Despite the complaints, MacFadyen says he is still pleased with the festival.

So if there was a big tourist pull to have monster trucks, drag racing or mechanical robot wars on the waterfront once a year, would that have to be put up with as well? The Sex Pistols were right I guess.

Alan writes that he is rock.

Nothing says rock more than a guy who posts 7 times in one day to a site that comes from a province he detests. Move on, Alan, you rocker you. The mouthy one asks “Why a rock concert? Why not blues and jazz or folk?” Because rock concerts pack them in. It’s that simple. We do have good blues and jazz and folk events on the Island (you must have missed those while you were busy writing about how little there is going on here), and they are well attended, but getting a group like Nickelback makes a big splash. I applaud the organizers for making this happen and making it a success. I’m sorry the downtown residents weren’t happy about it, but I knew this was happening months ago. Hell, I’ve had my tickets for months. Doing it at UPEI is classic “not-in-my-backyard,” because there are many people who live out that way as well who would be equally ticked.

Next year, I think they should have Alan MacLoud doing readings from his midlifecrisis.com web page. That’ll pack ‘em in. (Side note - you’ve spent a lot of time attacking the province for pestcide problems. I agree they do exist. But I find it funny that someone who does that then writes openly about eating at Kentucky Fried Chicken. Do you know the crap they pump into those birds? Do you know the conditions they’re kept in? Jason Alexander just ended his KFC endorsement because he finally woke up to the problems. And, hey, I’m sorry you had problems with the service at the KFC. Hopefully you registered the complaints with the maitre d’.)

You are great, Phil. Wayne, Phil is the new Wayne. Except Wayne is interesting. And probably not 12.

like all ports, Charlottetown’s waterfront is, and should remain industrial

soooo… send all the yuppies, born-agains, savants, whiners, rockers, dopers, freaks, skaters, punkers, tourists, squares, etc. out of there

put Canadian National’s trackage and yard back in with the locomotives running 24/7 and the banging of cars being shunted for the boat train, remove the workers comp folks and return the station building to its original purpose, tear down the naval reserve, get rid of Founders Hall and put the car shops back to the way they should be, put the Texaco tank farm back up on the site of the park, ditto for the Esso tank farm, and the Shell tank farm, and put up the Canada Packers slaughterhouse along with the stock pens etc.

rip out the tacky tourist traps of Peakes Quay which any visitor from a location marginally larger than Shulie, Nova Scotia (pop. 2) will see that area for what it is. Reinstate in the place of Peakes the old ship yard and mercantile wharves. Rip out the 4-laned Hillsborough River highway bridge, reinstate the old steel truss bridge on the stone piers, get rid of the Harbourside complex and restore those buildings to the warehouses they once were

oh, and tear down that godawful waste of architectural talent called the Delta-nee CP-nee Hilton, replace it with the much more interesting and lively waterfront slums and tenements - and send ships in!! lots of ships, lots of potato boats, gravel boats, oil tankers, barges, tugs, ferries, etc.

then you will have the port of Charlottetown that it should have stayed as. and you wouldn’t have those pesky concerts playing cheesy music for far-too-easily-entertained mainlanders and locals alike