Save the Nutty Brown Cafe!!!! Shame on Belterra!!!! (West: mobile home, utilities)

[hound 109]

How much does it cost to send deputies out there? And every time someone goes out there, the NB is in compliance. I think Hayes Co. (&/or the TABC?) should send the whiners a bill for wasting the officer's time.

If the "handful" (hmmm...30 residents in 3 big ol' subdivisions...let's call it three handfuls...) of citizens can't get the decible law changed to a lower level thru existing legal normal channels, then imo they can go pound sand.

I like their burgers & I've enjoyed a couple of shows there. If i lived in Belterra, I'd consider it a perk.

[antennaball]

I love the way the standard line is "Don't move close to a music venue", completely discounting the fact that Nutty Brown did not have the large outdoor stage until 2006. THAT'S when the problems started and that's long after a lot of these residents, even the Belterra ones, had moved in.

[Trainwreck20]

Again, it is absolutely irrelevant who was there first. That is kind of like saying I moved to this street first, so I can speed on it if I want. Conversely, the opposite is true - I just moved onto this street, and I am going to demand that you drive 10 mph below the speed limit. Totally unrelated to the laws.

You move to the county (outside the city) to get away from the city, but you also get away from the city laws. Outside the city limits you get to do what you want with a lot less restriction, and a lot less protection.

Personally, I have no idea how loud the music is at anyones house. Solution:
- Measure the volume at the house(s) and compare to the standard;
- If it is above, NB should take corrective action;
- If it is below, residents should
- a) live with it; or
- b) try to get the limit/laws changed.

Lot of rhetoric, but not a lot of fact, at this point.

[CptnRn]

I studied acoustics in college and I recall that sound levels drop off very slowly with distance.

NOISE POLLUTION Subjected to 45 decibels of noise, the average person cannot sleep. At 120 decibels the ear registers pain, but hearing damage begins at a much lower level, about 85 decibels. The duration of the exposure is also important. There is evidence that among young Americans hearing sensitivity is decreasing year by year because of exposure to noise, including excessively amplified music. Apart from hearing loss, such noise can cause lack of sleep, irritability, heartburn, indigestion, ulcers, high blood pressure, and possibly heart disease. One burst of noise, as from a passing truck, is known to alter endocrine, neurological, and cardiovascular functions in many individuals; prolonged or frequent exposure to such noise tends to make the physiological disturbances chronic. In addition, noise-induced stress creates severe tension in daily living and contributes to mental illness.

Since sound levels drop of relatively little with distance, it also means that anyone within 1.175 miles of the sound source might not be able to sleep (sound level below 45dB).

NOISE CONTROL (http://www.barrhill.org.uk/windfarm/noise/basics/NOISE%20CONTROL.htm - broken link) Sound reduction by distance - Sound spreading in open air and measured at a certain distance from the source is reduced by about 6 dB for each doubling of that distance.

If we have 80 dB at property line 100 feet from the sound source;
at 200 feet sound level would be 74 dB
at 400 feet sound level would be 68 dB
at 800 feet sound level would be 62 dB
at 1600 feet sound level would be 56 dB
at 3200 feet sound level would be 50 dB
at 6400 feet sound level would be 44 dB
So your house would have to be at least 1.175 MILES away before the sound level would drop off enough so that most people could sleep.

Given that 85 db is the noise level at which it begins to cause hearing damage, I can't imagine how that could be an acceptable level to allow at the property line of a music venue.

This website Noise and Hearing Loss says

Hazardous Noise - Sounds louder than 80 decibels are considered potentially dangerous.

So all of this means that a music venue with noise levels of 80 db at the property line are subjecting everyone inside of the property line to dangerous levels of noise.

[CptnRn]

Originally Posted by TexasHorseLady

Belterra is a subdivision of I believe about 1600 acres with a few hundred homes. The houses are as close together as any subdivision with houses in its price range. I wouldn't call that not "densely populated" for this situation.

It is not just Belterra that is complaining, if you listen to the news reports it includes people all around the area and on both sides of the highway.

[TexasHorseLady]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

It is not just Belterra that is complaining, if you listen to the news reports it includes people all around the area and on both sides of the highway.

Originally Posted by satxguero

Per Channel 7's story on their website-the complaints are being registered by 30 residents in Belterra, Heritage Oaks and Ledgestone communities.

Some Ask TABC to Close Nutty Brown Café (http://www.myfoxaustin.com/dpp/news/local/101909_Some_Ask_TABC_to_Close_Nutty_Brown_Cafe - broken link)

I only restricted mention to Belterra because in the post that I was responding to, the poster seemed to think that it was folks living out in the country, not folks living in subdivisions which ARE densely populated. No offense meant by leaving out Heritage Oaks and Ledgestone.

[CptnRn]

I don't know what you call dense, but that entire zip code has only 2499 houses on 47.7 sq. mi. of land, 52 houses per square mile, that is pretty low density.

The City-Data website for classifies the Population density "Very Low":

170 people per square mile (very low).

Compared to say my area Legend Oaks zip code 78749, Population density: 3154 people per square mile (average). , Houses and condos: 11,246, Land area: 10.3 sq. mi. or 1092 houses per square mile.

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

I studied acoustics in college and I recall that sound levels drop off very slowly with distance.



Since sound levels drop of relatively little with distance, it also means that anyone within 1.175 miles of the sound source might not be able to sleep (sound level below 45dB).



If we have 80 dB at property line 100 feet from the sound source;
at 200 feet sound level would be 74 dB
at 400 feet sound level would be 68 dB
at 800 feet sound level would be 62 dB
at 1600 feet sound level would be 56 dB
at 3200 feet sound level would be 50 dB
at 6400 feet sound level would be 44 dB
So your house would have to be at least 1.175 MILES away before the sound level would drop off enough so that most people could sleep.

Given that 85 db is the noise level at which it begins to cause hearing damage, I can't imagine how that could be an acceptable level to allow at the property line of a music venue.

This website Noise and Hearing Loss says



So all of this means that a music venue with noise levels of 80 db at the property line are subjecting everyone inside of the property line to dangerous levels of noise.

Decibels are a log function. So sound actually drops off extremely rapidly with distance. 6db is actually quite a large drop in power levels. A normal conversation is at 60-70.

Here is an idea of what various decibel levels are:

How Loud are Sounds?

<<Sound levels are measured in decibels (dB), which are a logarithmic measure of the loudness of a sound. The quietest sound that we can actually hear is about zero decibels. The loudest sounds we hear (without pain) are about 120 dB. The loudest sounds we can hear without causing us pain have about one million times more energy than the quietest sounds we can hear. Most sounds we hear are in the range of 30 to 100 dB.
Here is a table showing the decibel level of some common sounds:
Human whisper (at 1 m) 20 dB
Human conversation (at 1 m) 60-70 dB
Power saw (at 1 m) 110 dB
Yelling in someone's ear 114 dB
Threshold of pain to the human ear 120-130 dB
Sirens (at 1 m) 134 dB
Jet engine (at 20 m) 140 dB
Peak of rock music (at 5 m) 150 dB
Blue whale 188 dB

[TexasHorseLady]

Looking at another chart, 85 decibels is the sound of city traffic from inside the car. A child screaming is 90 decibels.

So 85 decibels at the property line for a music show doesn't seem all that unreasonable, and I believe NB said they were keeping it to 80 decibels (the decibels of a telephone dial tone according to that chart), weren't they?

[ATXIronHorse]

Originally Posted by pwherman512

So the Nutty Brown Cafe has been around for YEARS. For years they have served GREAT food and had GREAT music. Fast forward years later and Belterra gets built. People buy the homes and now they have filed a petition and complaint with the TABC against the Nutty Brown Cafe to have it shut down! Shame on you Belterra residents! Losers. Let's moe next to the airport and complain about music.

That really sucks. Nutty Brown is probably the best venue in the area!!!

Since when was live music and good times a bad thing?