Mile-End culture clash

>> The Main Hall tries to bounce back after complaints and permit problems shut
down live music

KEEPING INDIE, STAYING QUIET: Dan Webster

by PATRICK LEJTENYI

Live music fans may have noticed something amiss in the past few weeks. The Main Hall (5390 St-Laurent), the upstairs room of the two-venue Mile End Cultural Centre, has been cancelling shows for several weeks, thanks mostly to noise complaints from nearby residents. But complicating matters is the usual bureaucratic minefield of permits, zoning plans and this city’s own particular history of rule-bending when it comes to entertainment.

Dan Webster, the Mile End Cultural Centre’s general manager, takes noise complaints seriously. Ever since the number of complaints—and police visits to both the Main Hall and the downstairs show bar, the Green Room—jumped in late May from a handful over the past three years to several a week, he’s been at pains to soundproof the back doors where most of the noise leaks. (The Green Room recently received its salle de spectacle permit and, like the Main Hall, has installed soundproofing to muffle noise.) But the noise complaints come at a particularly bad time.

Because city zoning laws frown on new second-floor venues, would-be proprietors have to apply for a permit called a projet particulier, which would allow them to get around existing zoning restrictions. In order to get approved for a projet particulier, Webster has to submit an acoustical engineer’s report to the borough detailing the kind of soundproofing necessary to ensure that neighbours aren’t disturbed.

“The city said we had to stop unauthorized usages,” Webster says.

Testify, patrons

The fine details of the law aren’t about to squelch local music fans’ appreciation of the venue. Joey Sicurella, the Green Room’s co-manager, is trying to coordinate the support campaign by posting notices on message boards and sending out e-mails to the Mile End Cultural Centre’s 3,600-name subscriber list. He also wants to collect positive testimonials from residents and coordinate volunteers for a door-to-door campaign in the Plateau and Mile-End to convince residents to sign a petition to save the Main Hall. “So far, I’ve got about 150 people who have offered to help out with their time,” he says. “It’s a great showing so far. People have been very supportive.”

Sicurella says the 120-person-capacity Main Hall is a perfect mid-sized venue a musical hotbed like Montreal needs. Despite the compact size, popular acts like Martha Wainwright, Wolf Parade and the Sadies have packed the room to bursting. But with the new crackdown on noise, the venue has had to cancel show after show. “We were going to have [well-known DJ artists] Sixtoo and Ghislain Poirier perform, but we thought it was best not to do it [until the current situation is resolved, hopefully by the fall],” he says. “It’d be no fun if they weren’t using the sound equipment to their full potential, for them or for the audience.”

Webster is understandably less than thrilled about the current situation he finds himself in, but doesn’t necessarily begrudge the people making complaints about the noise. “We don’t want problems with the residents,” he says. “We’re there to serve the community, not get people upset.”

But he does admit that, as the neighbourhood becomes ever-more in-demand with the upwardly mobile, clashes between venues and residents will increase—and the city will take an increased interest. “Since property values have increased, the city is more vigilant about inspections and permits,” he says.

Rules made to be bent

Which was not always the case. For years, the city would usually turn a blind eye to venues that didn’t have the proper permits. In fact, it was this lax enforcement that fostered so many alternative venues that nurtured Montreal’s independent music scene. “Independent shows at small venues have gone on in Montreal for a long time,” says Webster. “There wasn’t a lot of enforcement in bars or meeting halls or art galleries…. You couldn’t really have a music community and availability if you didn’t bend the rules.”

Unfortunately, the Plateau borough isn’t feeling terribly sympathetic. Michel Tanguay, the Plateau borough’s communications rep, says that while he isn’t familiar with the particulars of the Main Hall case, he does say that, “When you change the vocation of a bar, there can be problems. What is happening in the venue must be authorized by zoning laws. The question is, did the borough give it the okay?”

Webster is hoping to have the situation resolved—to everyone’s satisfaction—by September. He’s optimistic that the borough will be flexible enough to accommodate the Main Hall, even if its second-floor location and history of complaints won’t make the process any easier.