East Dundee banquet hall fined seven times for noise
An East Dundee business that faced neighborhood opposition long before it even opened, has been fined seven times for playing music too loudly.
Last Wednesday, Premier Banquets was found guilty in absentia of breaking the village’s noise ordinance and fined $100 for each violation, Police Chief Terry Mee said.
Owner Jim Nagle said he didn’t appear in court or send a representative because he thought the matter already had been resolved with the village.
“Apparently, it wasn’t,” he said.
Six violations occurred in March — two on the same day — and the last one happened on April 14, Mee said. But the case wasn’t heard until last week because the matter had been continued.
While Mee says the violations were a result of dance/band events at the venue, Nagle says one was the from an anniversary party and that the rest came from concerts.
Either way, Mee said, no other business in town has ever generated as many complaints in such a short period of time.
In March, Nagle responded by putting sound insulation in the building to keep the noise level down.
Nagle also asked the neighbors who opposed his opening up shop in an abandoned car dealership off Route 25 — at least one has called police repeatedly to complain about the noise — to tour his venue, in an effort to mend fences.
None has taken him up on his offer, he said.
“They’ve never come and that’s not someone that wants to solve a problem,” Nagle said.
Premier Banquets is a place you’d go to hold a wedding reception, a party, or to attend concerts and sporting events, including boxing and kickboxing matches.
But before it even opened late last year, neighbors living behind the venue in unincorporated Dundee Township, complained about the noise they feared the business would generate and spoke out against its annexation into East Dundee.
They said they didn’t want the noise to impede on the quiet, country living to which they’d been accustomed.
John Arnold was one of the main neighbors opposed to the venue.
The stay-at-home dad with twin boys lives about 650 feet away from the venue and admits to calling the police more than 50 times to complain about noise since the it opened.
In the past, he said, its noise made his walls rock. Arnold acknowledged that he also signed or cosigned more than half of the seven noise complaints against the business.
“We’re not trying to stop progress, but we are a residential neighborhood and we deserve to use our house the way a house is designed,” Arnold said. “And that’s to sleep, eat, entertain our friends and family without having to listen to their stuff.”
Mee said the police department didn’t issue tickets before March because officers were trying to work with Nagle to tone it down without resorting to citations. But at some point, something had to give.
“The complaints continued over a period of time and eventually the complainants were adamant about wishing to pursue prosecution and were allowed to cosign citations,” Mee said.
Arnold acknowledges things are better with the soundproofing, but that he still hears some noise coming out of the venue.
“It’s bearable now, so we haven’t called the police,” Arnold said.