DALLAS, Texas — Imagine walking through an entertainment district and not hearing any live music, just silence in the streets. That’s what venues in Dallas are fearful will be their future after the Dallas Police Department handed over noise enforcement to City of Dallas Department of Code Compliance Services, which is cracking down.

Venue owners in Deep Ellum are frustrated with CCS over what they say is a targeted attempt to silence the century-old entertainment district. 

"Sending code compliance out and ticketing people for having an outdoor speaker on their patio makes no sense. Because if they did that, I mean, every single Bennigan's and Applebee's and like just the most generic places in Dallas really would need to be shut down,” said The Nines owner Allen Falkner. "And it's just frustrating because somebody is targeting Deep Ellum and we don't know why. We don't know what's going on.”

Deep Ellum was shut down during the pandemic, leading to a tremendous loss in revenue business owners are trying to make back now. They say this noise ordinance enforcement is insulting.

“That's literally our lifeblood is to be able to do live music. We do 400 live music events a year. So it’s literally everything to us," said Three Links Operating Partner Scott Beggs. "To be up against some of the challenges that this neighborhood faces but then to have the city jumping in and making it even tougher for us is, kind of, a kick to the groin, I guess."

You shouldn’t expect silence in one of Dallas’ biggest entertainment districts, as Deep Ellum relies on sound as its livelihood, meaning you can regularly hear live music in the streets. But now, businesses are getting hit with stern warnings and fines for violating the city’s noise ordinance.

“We were told that if they walk down the sidewalk and they can hear anything from your business, they can tell you to shut it down, shut down whatever noise is going on without regards to how many decibels or the time of day, or anything else. It's just if they can hear it on the sidewalk,” Beggs said.

In an effort to lighten the load on Dallas police, Code Compliance took over enforcing the city’s noise ordinance in April. They’re following the letter of the law, something Falkner says wasn’t done with this much scrutiny in the past.

"Really, the most frustrating thing about this law is there is nothing written in the law about the level of sound. You'd have to look at the law for the exact wording but it's basically supposed to be a common sense law, but what we might consider to be common sense might be different than what somebody else might consider to be common sense,” Falkner said.

“They have put Code Compliance in charge of the sound ordinance enforcement in Dallas, taking it away from the police, which is probably a good thing. The police have enough things on their hands,” Beggs said. "But the way the ordinance is reading at the moment is that it's a common sense approach to this and I think we're asking for some clarity on what common sense really is."

Dallas city code states “any loud and disturbing noise or vibration that is offensive to the ordinary sensibilities” is a violation and subject to warnings and tickets. Business owners say that vague language needs to change and a middle ground should be found.

“Code enforcement needs to understand that being in the middle of Deep Ellum is much different than being in a sleepy suburb of Dallas,” Falkner said. "Even just when there are no bands on, being in downtown Dallas on four o'clock or five o'clock on a Friday, it's loud. It's loud from the buses and the cars and the people walking around, so you can't have the same sound restrictions there, that you would somewhere like Lake Highlands or Highland Park or something like that. It doesn't make sense. This law is not a one-size-fits-all thing.”

Falkner recently walked Deep Ellum on a weekend to get decibel readings, which showed his establishment, The Nines, was on the lower end of decibel readings. He says but since there is an upstairs, that sound projects further and "blankets" the area. He’s concerned his club will be next on the CCS list.

"Most of the clubs were right around the 90 decibel range, some as up as 100 dB and some as low as about 80 dB. But there really was nobody below 80 dB," Falkner said. "There were a few above 100 dB, but most of the ones that were above 100 dB either had speakers right on their outside window, or there were things like motorcycles at like 110 dB. Those party bikes with people screaming on them, they can be upwards of 100 dB. And also it just depends on where you are. The intersection of Main Street and Crowdus Street and also Elm Street and Crowdus Street, just the ambient noise is up above 90 decibels."

A task force is being formed to come up with district-specific amendments to the citywide regulations in the hopes that the cultural district can continue to thrive as it has for over a century.

“I understand some frustrations but at the same point Deep Ellum has been a musical cultural epicenter for more than 100 years. The idea of taking music out of Deep Ellum is not only destructive to the culture but just destructive to the city of Dallas in general,” Falkner said.

A petition on Change.org has received more than 5,000 signatures supporting the businesses in the Deep Ellum entertainment district. Appropriately titled “Don’t Silence Deep Ellum,” it’s getting the word out that business owners feel change needs to happen before they lose their livelihoods yet again for the second year in a row.