Want to hold a graduation party or a wedding reception – or a weeklong religious festival – at your house?
Concord will no longer require permits for events on private residential property, a change prompted by last year’s dispute over a Hindu festival at a home on Pembroke Road. The city council approved the policy change Monday night.
“I think that the solution proposed by the city administration finds the balance between respecting people’s First Amendment rights, their ability to enjoy their own private property, with their neighbors’ ability to enjoy their property as well,” Mayor Jim Bouley said. “I think we have enough regulations within the city ordinances today to ensure that everyone can coexist properly.”
Bouley was one of the first city officials calling for stricter regulations to give city enforcement more clarity and avoid future conflicts. But the city reversed course after its attorney warned that requiring permits for events on private property could be a First Amendment violation.
With the change, most events on private property will be allowed to go forward without a permit. They will still be subject to the city’s code of ordinances, including restrictions on loud noise between the hours of 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday, as well as all day on Sundays and holidays. The code administration office won’t be involved, and the Concord Police Department will respond to complaints as needed.
Bouley described the new system as “a cleaner, more effective way of handling events that might get out of control in the future.”
“It’s much easier for the police to be able to enforce the noise ordinance,” Bouley said. “If there were concerns about the parking, it’s easier to enforce those parking regulations. . . . Having a permit sanctioned by the city adds to the confusion of the enforcement.”
The dispute dates to October, when a neighborhood on the Heights became the center of controversy.
A Hindu family applied for and received a permit to host a weeklong celebration at their Pembroke Road home for Purana, a religious festival to honor deceased ancestors and promote peace. The permit allowed for up to 50 people, and dozens of people flocked to the 0.32-acre lot all day for a week.
However, neighbors complained that loud chanting disrupted their residential street. The crowds and their cars also presented health and safety problems, they argued. Concord police visited the house, but at the time, a spokesman said they found no serious violations.
The officers required some cars to be moved, Lt. Tim O’Malley told the Monitor, but “from our perspective, they’ve been compliant with everything. The permits are all there, and we could find no issues when we responded up there.”
The neighbors, including Donna Marie Robie, disagreed. At the time, Robie told the Monitor that police didn’t see the biggest crowds or hear the loudest chanting. When contacted this week, she declined to comment again.
“We called the police to protect our rights and got a blind ear,” Robie said in October. “That’s the frustration, the length of the event, the noise of the event, the eyesore of the event, and disturbing the peace and having no regard for your neighbors when they ask you politely.”
The dispute spread to social media and then to local officials.
Concord’s public safety board took up a review of the incident and the permitting process. At a hearing in December, Bouley and other officials discussed the Pembroke Road dispute, and they wondered aloud about how to impose tighter regulations.
At that meeting, Gene Blake, the city’s licensing officer, said he would rather issue a permit late than never because “it gives the police department more teeth” in case of a violation. While the request for a multi-day event like this one in a residential neighborhood was a first for the city, Bouley said “it puts a lot of stress on the neighbors.”
Bouley also suggested permit applicants receive a packet of information about the codes, according to Monitor archives and meeting minuets. At-large Councilor Steve Shurtleff suggested a penalty for people who don’t pull a permit when needed.
The board also struggled to determine the criteria to issue these permits – for example, the deadline to apply. They asked city staff to come up with suggestions for those regulations and how to strengthen them.
But when the board met again in March, City Solicitor Jim Kennedy made a different recommendation. Citing the First Amendment, Kennedy said it was “in the city’s best interest not to regulate private events” on a person’s residential property. Carlos Baia, the deputy city manager for development, told the board “the permit itself can complicate enforcement by the police where the responding officer may not have all the details of the permit and may be reticent to take action.”
Ultimately, the public safety board recommended nixing permits altogether. The requirement isn’t lifted for everyone; a yard sale still requires a $5 permit, for example, and Blake said residents who want to close streets for a block party or other event will still need to apply to his office. But the organizers of a small backyard wedding – or a religious ceremony scheduled to last for several days – won’t need to do so.
“I think that the Pembroke Road call brought attention to the permitting process, and when we stepped back as a group and we just looked at it – should we as a city be issuing permits for gatherings that you’re going to have at your house on private property?” police Chief Brad Osgood said in an interview.
At Monday’s meeting, several councilors praised the eventual resolution. Ward 2 Councilor Allan Herschlag called it “a very important balance.” Bouley said city officials heard from all sides of the Pembroke Road issue and tried to come up with a solution.
“It takes away that ambiguity of having a permit and what does it mean – does it mean I have a permit so I don’t have to comply with all these other regulations?” Bouley said.
“It doesn’t give people carte blanche just because they have a permit,” Ward 5 Councilor Rob Werner said. “So we really need to spend more time reiterating the existing ordinances.”
Pressed about the Pembroke Road incident in particular, Blake, Bouley and Osgood all said multi-day events on residential property are extremely rare. Most take place on public property, like at the Kiwanis Riverfront Park.
Blake guessed he receives 20 to 30 applications every year for parties on private property. Those applications were previously forwarded to the police department to alert officers about upcoming events, but Osgood said he has no problem with the change in policy.
“I would hope that neighborhoods in our community would have the decency and the common sense and respect of others to at least notify their neighbors of what’s happening and have a consensus,” Osgood said.
(Megan Doyle can be reached at 369-3321, mdoyle@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @megan_e_doyle.)