Thus, the La Tulipe cabaret, a legendary, century-old, heritage performance hall, will have to cease its activities for the moment. The Court of Appeal ruled in favor of a citizen, Pierre-Yves Beaudoin, who, in 2016, set up a loft adjacent to the performance hall and, since then, has complained about the noise.
The saga has been going on for years. In 2023, the Superior Court had already ordered La Tulipe to carry out soundproofing work, without forcing a halt to its activities. This did not satisfy Pierre-Yves Beaudoin, who turned to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal did not need very elaborate gymnastics to find in favor of this citizen. All he had to do was read and interpret a municipal by-law, the Noise By-law, and it was not necessary to interpret it very creatively. The regulations say what they say: no noise emitted by a sound device must be perceptible outside. There is no need to consider whether the noise is reasonable or not; the threshold was set at zero, for La Tulipe as for all establishments. The Court therefore ruled in favor of Mr., and ordered the suspension of La Tulipe’s activities, for the moment.
This is not an isolated case. This noise regulation has got the better of other bars and performance halls in recent years. THE modus operandi is always the same: complaints, repeated fines distributed by the SPVM. Establishments must bear the costs, sometimes paying legal fees to defend themselves, until they decide to close their doors. In quick succession, Les Bobards in 2015, l’Inspecteur Épingle in 2016, then le Divan orange, the following year, closed their doors. More recently, the social club Le Scaphandre, also on Saint-Laurent Boulevard, threw in the towel. In the same sector, the Society of Technological Arts (SAT) has also been the target of repeated complaints.
On Thursday, the Plante administration hastily announced three measures aimed at protecting “cultural institutions.” First, the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough will exempt performance halls from the application of article 9 (1) of the Noise Regulation. Then, the City of Montreal will improve its soundproofing program to help performance halls renovate their facilities and, finally, it will present in October a nightlife policy “resulting from extensive consultation and consultation with partners . »
We wonder why we had to wait for such an aberration to act. Why didn’t the City question its regulations beforehand, what they do to nightlife, the cultural scene, or even just social life? During the pandemic, bars and performance halls were crying for help, emphasizing that they might not recover from the health crisis, that Montreal nightlife would never be the same again. We could have killed two birds with one stone and helped everyone while sweeping the regulations to prevent further damage in the future.
Except that the City of Montreal, we guess, is stuck by the financial interests involved. It finds itself having to accommodate citizens — property owners and developers, to be more fair — against noise pollution in areas that attract people, and money, precisely because there is a lot to do, a lot to have. This is what happens when we let people invest to benefit from the aura, the promise of real estate appreciation, without really being interested in the social fabric…
On Wednesday, singer-songwriter Klô Pelgag protested on Facebook about La Tulipe: “Each bad decision of this kind is another card in the castle which collapses. How many decibels will we have to cut before we find ourselves alone in silence. And what will this silence say about us and our identity? »
It’s obvious: closing performance halls, places of expression and sharing of art, weakens cultural life as a whole. In the name of property rights, we are sanitizing the urban fabric and weakening the cultural ecosystem. This betrays a terribly poor vision of cultural life: locking up artistic expression in perfectly soundproof spaces, away from social life, so as not to disturb anyone.
Except that art lives with the communities it joins. It must be rooted somewhere. A show is never unidirectional: it is the meeting between an artist and an audience, who gives at the same time as they receive. This is also what we are killing.
And it’s not just the cultural dimension. There is the social dimension too. Gentrification processes, it is true everywhere, are accompanied by a fierce fight against noise. As citizens who feel entitled to live in a silent cocoon settle into central neighborhoods characterized by their bustle, they flatten them, sanitize them.
We know that Montreal is already well engaged in social cleansing: hiding poverty, especially homeless people. However, this cleaning also extends to cultural life: ensuring that there is always less noise, by taming nightlife and, while we are at it, the noise generated by the performing arts while short.
There is something pitiful there. We are allowing the central neighborhoods of Montreal to be transformed into dormitories for the rich. This is hardly an exaggeration. Nothing should protrude, nothing should make noise, except perhaps the heavy sound of luxury SUVs crashing into speed bumps as they rush down residential streets. Is this really the city we want?