Fed-up Atlanta councilmember calls city’s noise ordinance a joke

One Atlanta City Councilmember from Buckhead is so sick and tired of the city’s toothless noise ordinance he’s dropping references to the hypothetical breasts of aquatic creatures.

In an out-of-the-blue city press release that seriously happened, longtime District 7 Councilman Howard Shook calls for the city’s rules on excessive noise to be repealed—because, he contends, they’re essentially worthless.

According to Shook, the “key law” is routinely ignored by police and city solicitors, meaning it has “all the effectiveness of mammary glands on a fish,” the release states.

Shook’s so fed up, he introduced legislation at a Tuesday council meeting to repeal the noise ordinance—the product of what he calls “two excruciating rewrites” requested by police and city solicitors.

The straw that finally drove the camel down upon its own mammary glands was a certain “bar”—unnamed in the release—that’s generated 92 recent noise complaints without being slapped with a single citation, per Shook.

In an interview with 11Alive, Shook refuses to specify which raucous establishment is such a thorn in his side, but he specifies that it’s a Buckhead nightclub.

It doesn’t take Sherlock and Watson to link Shook’s ire (probably) back to a nightspot that opened last year at the base of the Peachtree Battle Condominiums. Owned by Atlanta Hawks star Dennis Schroder (whose gold-plated Audi often sits outside), it’s called DS17.

Shook was quoted in a piece this past April by the AJC’s Bill Torpy that chronicled the “long-running saga” between the club and neighbors in the old-school flats above.

One longtime resident—who lives on the 14th floor—said the earth-shaking noise was severe enough to keep her up all night.

Per the AJC, the ordinance Shook detests limits decibel levels to 65 at night in a commercial area—somewhere between a clothes and hair dryer—and states that music shouldn’t be audible to someone standing 50 feet away.

Let alone on the 14th floor.

• They live/work/play but can’t sleep because of club [AJC]
• Atlanta councilman: Repeal "fraud" noise ordinance [11Alive]