Exhausted condo residents living near nightclub in Toronto pushing for more rules

Exhausted Toronto condo residents impacted by blaring music and loud crowds are preparing to push for the city to prevent nightclubs from operating close to residential buildings at a review this month.

The city’s upcoming “night economy” review is part of an effort to support and enhance Toronto’s nightlife while also modernizing zoning and licensing regulations for bars, restaurants and entertainment venues. Part of that review will be an update to definitions, rules and licensing for these establishments.

Residents living on King Street West near Niagara Street say they are ready to use the public meeting as an opportunity to tell city officials about the impact the loud music and vibrations reverberating from nearby nightclubs has had on their lives.

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Residents previously told CTV News Toronto about music blaring until 3 am. from establishments licenced as restaurants and the anxiety of constantly anticipating when the noise will return.

“There's no way anyone could sleep through this,” Angeline Putnickovich said in June. “If it's like this every weekend or even … especially Wednesday, Thursday throughout the workweek, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

CHANGING THE RULES

Kyle Knoeck, director of zoning and city planning with the City of Toronto, told CTV News Toronto there is significant interest in ensuring there are "culturally vibrant activities" taking place across the city outside of business hours.

"We had to ask ourselves: are the rules that we have in place that regulate these types of businesses and activities, are they modern and contemporary and do they reflect the types of uses and activities that we want to encourage and see flourish in the city?"

Knoeck acknowledged that nightclubs, as the rules stand now, are limited in where they are permitted, and that one of the things the city is looking at is whether they should be allowed to operate outside of the downtown core. He also said he is aware the restaurant industry has "evolved."

"There's a greater tendency to sort of mix dining up with entertainment," he said in early April. "Restaurants sometimes might sort of evolve into a dance space later in the evening or they might have other entertainment that happens and our zoning bylaw doesn't really reflect that kind of gray area.”

"We need to relook at our zoning and make sure that it reflects what modern businesses actually look like and not what may be the bar restaurant and entertainment industry looked like in the 1950s."

A bar owner makes a drink in a Toronto bar on December 5, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

At the same time, city officials have said they are aware there have been some conflicts with residents and "bad operators" that could taint the general public’s views.

"Operators have shared with us they are lacking clear distinctions between different business types," Ginny Adey, director of policy and strategic support with Toronto's municipal licensing and standards, told CTV News Toronto.

"We know that the categories will need to better differentiate between different types of establishments based on how the business is used and what the activities are in that business. So when it comes to bars and restaurants, things like the capacity of the venue, whether they serve liquor, how long they're open for, whether there's entertainment."

Adey said the city isn't proposing any concrete changes during the public consultations, which are set to take place this week. Instead officials hope to take in feedback from the public and businesses in order to make their recommendations in the fall of 2023.

EXHAUSTED RESIDENTS CALL FOR CHANGE

In June 2022, a new establishment called Hyde Social opened up in a commercial space on the street level of 801 King Street West, right underneath a condominium building.

Multiple residents told CTV News Toronto at the time that heavy dance music and electrical vibrations could be heard and felt throughout the building, preventing them from sleeping.

The alleged nightclub, which recently shut its doors after eight months, operated under an "eating establishment" licence, meaning they are considered to be a restaurant, café, bar or pub with seating for patrons.

A nightclub or entertainment establishment is defined as a premises in which there is a dance facility for patrons and where seating is not provided for most customers. Food or beverage “may be offered.”

Residents claimed last summer the nightclub under their condo had seating, but advertised they were open until 3 a.m., and had bottle service and guest list options available.

• MORE: Toronto residents complain of sleepless nights after alleged nightclub opens in condo building

A 2017 auditor general's report found eating establishments are not subject to the same "rigorous requirements" as nightclubs, which have to provide noise and crowd control plans, and must be with at least one security guard for every 100 patrons. The office logged 831 complaints against eating establishments in 2016, with half of them noise related.

It also found that 15 licensed eating establishments could potentially be operating as unlicensed nightclubs who were promoting DJ nights and late opening hours.

"I don't think anyone's taking action on things because, to be honest, a lot of our issues are not necessarily violations, they're just bad bylaws," Sabrina, a King Street West resident who only wanted to be identified by her first name, told CTV News Toronto in April.

"For me, mostly, it was the noise. It was the bass music that was either keeping me up or waking me up, to the point where I was always expecting it to come so it was causing a lot of anxiety."

Sabrina is primarily impacted by a secondary establishment across the street called Pizza Wine Disco. It is also considered a restaurant, although residents say they have complained about music blasting until about 3 a.m.

The restaurant does serve food during the day, according to its website, but it also promotes bottle service and videos posted to the business' TikTok shows patrons dancing to music while a DJ performs. Pizza Wine Disco did not respond to a request for comment.

Another King Street West resident says she can hear the bass starting just before 11 p.m. every Friday and Saturday.

"I have to turn the noise machines on in every room to drown out the noise even when I'm not trying to sleep," Nancy, who also wanted to be identified by her first name, told CTV News Toronto. "I put in noise canceling curtains but they don't work.”

"There's so much anxiety because I'm always aware of it."

'WE'VE BEEN WAITING'

Sabrina and Nancy both say they have been waiting a long time for this review, which was slated to begin before the pandemic, and they are hopeful it will result in change.

In particular, they are hoping the city considers establishing more licensing options, including a tiered approach to entertainment venues based on neighbourhood needs. These "tiers" could allow pubs or bars to open in residential areas or even nightclubs as long as there is significant soundproofing.

"I'm not against a ... bar opening up across the street," Sabrina noted. "But the noise level for that type of place needs to be lower than what a noise level is for a nightclub."

People dancing in a nightclub are seen in this stock image (Pexels/Aleksandar Pasaric)

Nancy said her suggestion would be to also modernize decibel level readings so it takes ambient noise into consideration as well as that of music. She also said the city should measure noise levels at the source rather than the unit of a resident who is complaining.

"Instead of them coming to our house and trying to get a decibel reading that's above the limit, they should measure it where it's coming from," she said. "They're never going to get an over-the-limit reading because there's ambient noise, there's wind and all kinds of things.”

"Our problem is bass mostly when it comes to the clubbing music … that's the most bothersome thing and yet, the decibel readers, they do read bass but I don't think they can read or sense the vibrations exactly."

She said the measurements are based on what's audible, but the pulsing bass that residents feel in their bones is what is most problematic.

"Meters can't even capture what we're complaining about."

Other suggestions include a more streamlined approach to complaints related to Toronto's nightlife, that officials take density and hours of operation into consideration when granting licenses and zoning, and an 11 p.m. cutoff for noise near residential areas, among other things.

Virtual public consultations will take place on April 12 and April 13 between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m.. An in-person meeting will take place on the evening of April 17.

Feedback can also be provided through an online survey.