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Tell Mayor Smiley What You Think About “Noise at Night”
Dear Noise Project supporter,
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You’re receiving this e-mail because your submission to our Community Noise Survey indicated that you’re exposed to excessive sound levels from commercial venues such as bars, clubs, and restaurants (and / or more “industrialized” businesses such as vehicle repair).
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The Smiley administration’s Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism (ACT) is conducting what it is calling a “Life at Night” study in order to “to better understand the economic impact” of Providence’s many food and entertainment venues — but not their impact on residents’ health or quality of life.
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The study is pretty obviously biased toward the owners of these businesses, and seems to have pre-determined that they need to be promoted to the broader public. Consider this language from the study page on the Providence government website:
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“Defining the contribution that businesses like yours make to our city’s economy
and job base will help foster a much more constructive and sensible approach
to managing the issues that impact you. This work will also provide data to help
your industry tell a compelling story about the role that nighttime-oriented
business plays in the city’s cultural, social and economic life.” [emphasis added]
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Words like “constructive” and “sensible” are code for policies that put the interests of commercial venues ahead of those of residents. If you’re wondering where Providence residents who live near these businesses fit into all this, don’t look too hard on the study’s webpage, because their concerns aren’t mentioned anywhere.
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The primary means of gathering input on “Life at Night” is through an online survey in English and Español, which residents are free to complete. Whether the city will lend equal weight to the views of businesses and residents hasn’t been determined.
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We urge every Providence resident to submit their experiences
of noise from commercial venues to the city through the survey.
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In addition to the survey, the city is selectively inviting business owners’ (and a few residents) to participate in focus groups to hear their views / experiences first-hand. The Noise Project complained to ACT about the imbalance, and ultimately cajoled them into holding a focus group to include the views of residents about entertainment noise.
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That's where you come in. We are seeking residents who experience noise from commercial venues to participate in a single Noise Project – ACT focus group that we are scheduling in the next few weeks — the exact date and time to be determined by the availability of a sufficient number of participants.
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So we are asking you to contact us to let us know when you can attend a one-time focus group in the coming weeks. The scheduling parameters are:
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- Day(s) of the week — Let us know which weekdays (Monday through Friday) you are available to attend.
- Time(s) of day — The focus groups generally occur during the day, but we may be able to schedule it at night if that's when most people are available.
- Coming week(s) — The ACT will complete its focus groups by mid-September, so it has to be in the next three weeks: Aug. 28–Sept. 1, or Sept. 4–8 or 11–15.
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If you want to participate in the focus group, click the button below and send us all of the information above. Once we’ve determined when most people can participate, we will contact you directly and let you know the date we’ve scheduled it for.
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If you have any questions regarding the Life at Night study or focus group, please contact the Noise Project through our website. Thanks as always for your continued support and for your interest in making Providence a quieter and healthier place to be.
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