State College’s council refuses to rescind PSU frat’s noise waiver for outdoor concert. Here’s why
After a “confusing” debate where borough staff acknowledged they mistook a fraternity’s hired French DJ for an international violinist, State College Borough Council refused to rescind a noise waiver for an outdoor concert next month.
In the end, borough manager Tom Fountaine said, the violinist/DJ confusion wasn’t the reason staff recommended formally taking back approval. It was an entirely different oversight. But council still didn’t plan to punish Phi Kappa Psi (403 Locust Lane) for the borough’s mistakes.
“I don’t think we can change the rules midstream,” Councilwoman Katherine Yeaple said.
Council voted 7-0 Monday to allow the Penn State frat to continue with its noise waiver for a Sept. 17 outdoor concert on its property, one featuring Lyon, France-based DJ Tony Romera. The waiver — which runs until 10 p.m. — doesn’t grant the frat the ability to make as much noise as it wants. It simply first gives the fraternity a courtesy noise warning instead of immediately shutting the event down.
A representative for the frat said it plans to hire security, fencing has already been installed, and the outdoor crowd limit is currently estimated at roughly 120 people, based on the frat’s discussions with the university’s Office of Fraternity & Sorority Compliance.
“I will absolutely make a request that they make sure there is sufficient crowd control, that both our police department know ahead and they know ahead that crowd control is a potentially dangerous thing,” Councilwoman Theresa Lafer said. “But music? Happy people at a party outside, listening to a DJ who came all the way from France? That’s kind of cool.”
The actual reason borough staff wanted to pull the frat’s noise waiver, which was submitted in June and granted in July, involved the fact the frat never received approval from the housing corporation that owns the property. (The borough has since discovered it’s opposed.) But that wasn’t necessarily the fault of the frat.
Because noise waiver requests aren’t typically submitted for private property (or at least by non-home owners), there’s no section in the borough paperwork that requires the owner to sign off on it. The borough now plans to fix that oversight — but, in the meantime, the frat had proverbially fallen through the cracks.
Councilman Evan Myers summed up the issue — and his reasoning for voting in the fraternity’s favor — succinctly.
“The question is, and I don’t know if we have the answer to this, what’s in the lease? What’s in the lease to the owner?” Myers asked. “Does it give the owner recourse and authority in the lease to prevent this? If it does, then we’re doing their work for them. They can say, ‘No, you can’t do it.’ If it doesn’t, then why should we be doing their work for them?”
Added Lafer, referring to not getting the owner’s OK: “It wasn’t required of them. It was not on the list of things they had to do first. I do not think we can hold them to something that was not requested.”
Reached by phone Wednesday, frat member Andrew Eisel — who spoke at Monday’s council meeting — said the concert tentatively remains on. Because Greek life didn’t get many opportunities for socials last year, Eisel said he wanted to help host an event for them to come together this year.
The three-hour outdoor concert is scheduled to go on the weekend of the Penn State-Auburn football game, specifically the night before, on Friday. Romera, the performing DJ, is set to take part later this fall in Las Vegas’ Electric Daisy Carnival, the largest electronic dance music festival in North America.
“We are currently working with the university’s Office of Fraternity & Sorority Compliance to safely hold this event,” Eisel added in a written statement.
Legally, the frat does not need the borough’s permission to hold the event itself — much like the frat’s neighbors don’t need a permit to hold a family reunion on their property while playing music. Because this isn’t a ticketed event, and because public spaces like roadways aren’t being utilized, the frat didn’t require a special activities permit.
It’s not clear exactly how borough staff mistook the DJ for a violinist, as Fountaine acknowledged the frat never misrepresented who was performing. But, even if the mix-up was worth a chuckle or two at Monday’s council meeting, the borough manager reiterated that the borough was not concerned with whether the noise came from from a violin or from Electro House music. It’s simply concerned with how much noise is caused overall.
According to the borough, there is not a specific decibel limit for the event. Police will use their judgment on what’s too loud based on nearly a dozen factors, such as neighborhood complaints, time of day, day of week, whether the noise is temporary, whether it’s natural, and whether the location has had previous complaints.
“All joking aside about sitting on my terrace and listening, that’s fine. It’s only going until 10 o’clock at night; it’s not like it’s going until 2 a.m.,” Lafer said. “... In all seriousness, a noise waiver until 10 o’clock is fine unless you’re playing the kind of music that uses obscenities — in which case I’ll ask them to shut you down when I first hear the obscenities. But that’s a separate issue. I actually have no problem with this.”
