City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. So, just for what looks like we have a couple attendees online, which is great. Um, hang tight. We're just going to give people another minute and then we'll go ahead and officially kick off. So, again, you've got about two minutes if you want to go grab a coffee or do what you got to do before we start the meeting and then we'll get started.

All right, we will go ahead and kick it off. Thank you everyone for joining. My name is Angela Fouse. I am with development services. Also joining us is Lauren Knox. Her and I work on I would say all things related to planning, zoning, kind of long-term um visioning or policy topics that council has interest in. So, um, we're working on this live entertainment project right now. The item before us today, this is our second public kind of community feedback meeting. We held another one earlier this week. The information provided today will be the same. So, for any of you that attended on Tuesday, this information is the same. Um, we did realize that our chat function at the at the bottom of our screen um has been disabled. Apparently, we're no longer using chat, but we are using the Q&A. So, as questions come up during the presentation or after the presentation, you have the ability to use that Q&A if you want to provide a a question um we will also have an opportunity for you to come in and speak um as a speaker at the end of the presentation. So, just heads up on that. All right. And I will go ahead and kick it off and share my screen. Okay. So, a little bit of history. We have been working on the topic of live entertainment for a couple years now. Um there's there's kind of two sides to this. One is the issue of noise and specifically in our downtown, the fact that we don't have noise regulations. So that is a separate topic um that we've been working with council on separately from this. This is topic specific to live entertainment and just what can we do to be more friendly um towards businesses that want to operate with live entertainment. So, just kind of to separate those two items, um, last March, we presented an item. So, a month ago, we presented an item to council and just gave them an update on some of the surveys that we've been holding, um, community feedback we've been getting on

what's working and what's not working related to live entertainment. And council took that and said, you know what, let's try just a short-term, we're going to call it a pilot program. Um the intent here is to be more businessfriendly but also to put in some safeguards to make sure that we're not doing a disadvantage to the residents. So they said staff go forth and come back with a pilot program that we can try just short term. Um but again it gives us some flexibility to try something out before we make it a a permanent change to our code. So kind of the whole purpose behind this really is focused on helping helping those small businesses as we are getting ready to enter uh summer season. We have a lot more people coming to downtown and with that we have a lot more people interested in concerts and um more of the the nightclub activity that maybe they weren't coming to Rena for weren't coming to downtown for during the winter months. So, we're trying to get in front of it quickly so that we can again offer those businesses the opportunity during this kind of critical summertime um to get in front of it. So, the intent is just to create a temporary program where we can try it out and we're going to put some safeguards on it. Again, um we don't want to just say come do whatever you want, no restrictions. We want to make sure that there's some some bookend so to speak to say like, "Okay, we want you to come. We want you to have live entertainment, but we're going to put some limitations on what that looks like." Just generally speaking, when we talk about live entertainment, um state law defines live entertainment and just from a a practical sense, live entertainment is anything really that involves um a band or a DJ, whether it's a nightclub and there's dancing, whether it's a you know, somebody playing a guitar, maybe at a restaurant, all of that is consistent with how we define live entertainment. Um, the way our code currently regulates live entertainment

is citywide across the board. You can do all of those things until 11 o'clock at night with no restrictions. So, no conditional use permit, no extra planning approval is required. But once you hit 11:00, and this is citywide, once you hit 11:00, if you want to do any kind of indoor live entertainment, you have to go through a conditional use permit process. And a conditional use permit is through our planning department. It does get reviewed through our our business license and our police department and a number of other departments, but the um the planning department handles all of the zoning entitlements. And so we process that. It takes about 3 months. It's unique to your parcel, so it's not necessarily specific to your business. So once you get a conditional use permit, it lives forever with that piece of property. So, if you as a business owner, you spend the money, you go through the three-month approval, you get your conditional use permit, and then you change to a different location a year later, that conditional use permit does not go with you. You have to apply all over again based on your new location. So, again, just a little bit of um history on on that process. With this pilot program, then we're trying to help businesses, not that they have to avoid that process, but this gives them a chance to put something else in place. So, we're asking them to say um instead of having to go through that conditional use permit, so we're going to give an exemption to that. Um you know, there's there's some incentive for the businesses there, but this is only for the next 18 months. So, this is for us to try it out and see if it works. And this is only applicable if you're doing indoor live entertainment. We have a lot of bars in our downtown and kind of midtown that have patios and um a lot of times they ask to have bar um bands or DJs in the outdoor patio area. Our code only allows outdoor live entertainment until 10:00 at night. And so this would not apply to that. If you

have a patio or a bar and you want to do outdoor live entertainment after 10:00, you would still have to go through that conditional use permit. So just again um know that this is only for indoor activities related to live entertainment and per code just standard you do have to go through a cabaret license. This doesn't change that. A cabaret license is through our business license department. So separate from zoning and that's a separate process. They do background checks and a number of things and that's not necessarily a big public review process. It's more of an administrative review process but that that is still applicable. So, you'd still have to go through that process. The additional piece that we are asking as part of this pilot program is that you apply for um a security plan. And the idea is that there's a number of things when you're having live entertainment that we want to make sure that you're operating in a way that is safe for the community. And so, we have a checklist of things on the security plan that you would have to say here's how you know your business is operating and adhering to those things. Now, the benefit here is that there's no fee. This is something we've been requiring as you go through your conditional use permit. So, we've kept that piece on there, and you just do this before you apply for your business uh your cabaret license through the business department. And we understand that there's no oneizefits-all. So, you may have a nightclub or you may just have a bar that occasionally wants to have bands that go till midnight. And and we understand there's a difference. So, we have a minimum list of things that you need to provide to us. And again, it just gives us the assurance that you've thought about these things. You've thought about security. You know, do you have bouncers at the door making sure that people aren't being overs served before they come in? Um, when you have people standing in line to get in, do you make are you making sure that the bouncers are trained on how to kind of handle crowd control before they come in? Weapons is another thing. You know, are your bouncers trained on how to deal with weapons? Um, either making sure they're not bringing weapons in or if

they do see a weapon, how to handle it. So those are again from a safety perspective the things that we want you as a business owner to be able to show that that you have you know the right training in place. Now we also acknowledge that not every live entertainment is a nightclub and so we have a separate type of checklist if you are not so much of a nightclub but you just want to have um evening activities again more live entertainment after 11 o'clock at night. Maybe it's just you want to have performers but it's not like a full band. Maybe it's just somebody that's coming and again more low-key. So again, we understand that maybe you don't need bouncers for that type of situation, but we want to make sure that you still are aware of um how to keep that place safe and how to operate in a way that um meets all of our our kind of standard regulations. So that security plan is going to still be required as part of this pilot program. And once you submit it, it goes through a review through our planning department and our code enforcement and our business license. Uh the Reno Police Department weighs in as well. And these are all kind of the experts in this field because they deal with operators of, you know, kind of all over the spectrum in terms of um just a coffee shop that has somebody, you know, strumming a guitar versus a nightclub that goes till 6:00 in the morning. So they've seen everything in between and they have a kind of a better idea of what what works and what doesn't work. So all of those different departments get to weigh in and review it and we work with you as the business operator to make sure that you are comfortable with everything and that you've signed off and then again that is part of your cabaret license. Um and we'll refer to that. So, if we get calls that you're not being a good operator, we're going to go back to that security plan and say, "Now, here's the tools that you said you would provide, the security that you would provide. Want to make sure you're still adhering to that." And when we have situations where things are getting out of hand, maybe we have a bad operator who's not complying, as part of

this pilot program, we're just acknowledging and putting it out there in writing. this would be part of our zoning code that we may have to go back and say your security plan is not working. You know, maybe the the operation that you thought um maybe the customers you thought that would be coming to your bar are a different kind of clientele. Maybe they're a little bit rowdier or maybe they you know, you intend to stay out open later than you thought. Um so we reserve the right to say let's go back and look at that security plan and make sure it still works. Again, we want to give the businesses kind of the benefit of the doubt. you know how you want to operate and we trust that. Um but when we find out that it's not working for whatever reason, we want the ability to go back and say let's let's try and find another way to make more of a um a peaceful situation here. If we continue to get complaints, whether it's through um you know, Reno direct complaints or through calls for service, meaning 911 calls, we reserve the right to say this is not working. We've tried to work with you as a business and we're going to have to revoke your cabaret license. That means you can still operate as whatever you were a coffee shop or a bar, but you no longer could do live entertainment. So, we're just putting it out there that again through this pilot program, um it's kind of this give and take. We're going to try it and see what works. And I I mean I have full faith that we we will be able as staff to work with the business operators, people that are, you know, investing in downtown want to make it work. So, we too want to see you be successful. Um I I I highly doubt we're going to have to revoke anyone's cabaret license. So that's not intended to be a threat to anyone by putting those words in our zoning code. It's just really acknowledging that we have this extra tool to kind of put us some safeguards in place. Um we had one business um here recently within the past couple years that we had constant complaints and there was a lot of fights. Um there was shootings. It was just constant constant problems. And so we worked with that business owner and we said, "Give us a new security plan. The one that you're using is not working." And he gave us a

new security plan. and the problems did not end. So at some point we did have to close him down. So I would say while it took us a while to do that, it was again kind of a trial, but we learned from that and said, "Okay, this this is kind of a method that works." Um, so we're kind of taking that as something that we've done in the past that has worked and we're trying to just make it more part of this pilot program, something that we can do more on a regular basis. Now, in terms of where this pilot program is applicable, um, from a locationational perspective, we looked at where in the city of Reno can you have 24-hour uses. It's pretty limited. Um, so we're trying to just keep it, this pilot program limited to those same areas. I would call it more of our entertainment core. This is areas like our Midtown, you know, along Virginia Street, our downtown where we have the casinos and the majority of our nightclubs, and then East Street where we have quite a few bars. Um, we call that more of our entertainment area. And those are places that again today you can have a bar or a business operating 24 hours a day with no extra requirements. So, it makes sense from from a zoning perspective um that this is where the people are going. they're already there for live entertainment activities or for bar activities or just because it's a 24-hour town. Um, this is the places they already are. So, this pilot program is going to be specific to just these locations. Um, if you are in kind of a a suburban area and maybe it's a different bar, you know, coming into town, you would still have to have a conditional use permit if you want to have live entertainment after 11 unless you're in these areas. Now, the other thing um that I want to highlight is this this does not change anything for existing bars. So, if you are an existing bar and you have live entertainment, this does not change anything for you. We're not asking you to provide a security plan. You don't have to change the way you operate. Once

you're approved, you're grandfathered in. Um this is only applicable to any new business that comes in that wants that live entertainment. All right. Okay. So, one of the questions we've been getting is, "Hey, that's great that you're doing so much for the business community, but we also have residents living in these areas and and how does this help residents?" So, we did keep that in mind. Um, again, the things that we were looking at is again, what can we do to help the businesses? That's the direction council gave us, but what can we do to also put in some safeguards to protect those living in the downtown kind of entertainment core. So, only live entertainment within the indoors. This does not impact anything outdoors. Again, hoping that that kind of helps to um limit that we don't have just a bunch of bands outside at 6:00 in the morning. This is specific to only indoors. Also, this is only limited to areas that already are allowed to operate 24 hours a day. So, we're not giving you any new time extension that you didn't have before. If you open a business in the entertainment corps today, you already can operate 24 hours a day. So you can have a bar till whatever time you want. The live entertainment piece um is what triggers after 11 o'clock that that additional conditional use permit. So from a location perspective only areas within that entertainment core are the ones impacted by this pilot program. And then third is really by by you know putting the words on paper acknowledging that to business owners we do have repercussions. So if you are a bad operator we're going to do our best to work with you. This isn't like three strikes and you're out. We're going to come talk to you. We're going to say if we're getting complaints, we need you to amend your security plan. We need you to amend the way that you are operating. And again, if you continue to not be a good operator, we're reserving the right to revoke your Cabaret license. So, it gives us a little bit more teeth. It's acknowledged that we are, you know, putting this. So, by going through this

temporary pilot program, you two are acknowledging I'm willing to kind of expedite getting live entertainment by not going through that expensive conditional use permit process. And in return, I will be a good operator and understand that my cabaret license could be taken away if I am not. All right. So, next steps, again, this is a pilot program. Um, so April, right now, this week, we're holding our our public input meetings trying to get feedback. And then in May, next week, we're going to go to planning commission. This is kind of a multi-step process to get this pilot program going. And so then in June, we will have this in front of city council and they can modify or approve or deny. Um, and then over the next 18 months once this is approved, our goal is to really take a hard look at those businesses that are part of this program and say what's working and what's not. Again, I'm I'm hoping that we can have some good operators and we don't get a lot of complaints. But if we do get complaints either from 911 calls or from residents um nearby that are complaining, we're going to have those conversations and say again, you know, this is what's working and what's not. So, after 18 months, we're going to go back and tell council here's where we're at. By then, we would have had kind of two summer seasons. So, it gives us a little bit more than just a couple months to to see if this is working and then see if council wants to make this a permanent program or if they want to modify in some other way. Um, I I would also acknowledge that, you know, this this is trial. So, this is not, you know, this just because we're trying it doesn't mean this is the end. Um, if we find that, you know, this pilot program didn't work at all. We thought having a security plan would give us more teeth and it didn't. Okay, great. Let's go back to the drawing board and try something else. So, that's kind of the whole purpose of this. We're going to try it. Um, council has seen this. There was another example of it in Miami Beach. And so, they got the idea of, oh, another community is doing something similar, not exactly like we are, but

something similar to really kind of try and get more entertainment and get more businesses to their downtown areas. And they said, let's try it as well. So, that's where we're at today. Now, there are a number of places where you can provide feedback. We do have a website. Um, and Lauren's going to put that in the in the uh Q&A. I think there's a link, but if you if you don't need the link, it's it's, you know, 20 characters. So, if you just go on to any search engine, just Google City of Reno initiatives and updates, and it will take you to our web page. So, you can see exactly the language that's proposed as part of this draft code. And then, um, my email fouse a reno.gov. And any comments you provide through email, I will include that with the packet that goes to planning commission and city council. So again, anything that you have questions, comments, feel free to ask. Um comments whether you think this is good or bad or you have suggestions of ways we can improve it, that would be greatly appreciated. And again, we'll include all those comments when this goes to planning commission and city council. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing and then we're going to open it up to Q&A. So, if you do have any Q&A, you can either, you know, raise your virtual hand or we have the box. Um, so it looks like we do have a couple questions in Q&A. Number one is how did the 18 months come about? So, the response to that is staff proposed it. Um, again from our perspective, we wanted the ability to have enough time to try it out um before we made anything a a permanent change. And so if we find that, you know, let's say we have um maybe one bar that uses this this summer, okay, one bar doesn't really give us much to try. Um typically we we get two to three applications per year for live entertainment. So, we don't get a whole lot of new applications, but the idea is that let's

let's give it enough time that we can try it out, get a couple kind of I would say summer seasons, busier seasons um to see if it works. Now, the the great thing about a pilot program is if we find that it's not working and we don't like it, we can always pull it back and stop it. So, um the end stop though is 18 months, but the idea is that we go back to council before then and give them an update on what's working, what's not. Um so, that's where that came from. Next question is, will there be some extra personnel to help enforce respond to this? The answer is no. Um, we will continue to use the resources we have and a lot of this relies on the public. So, when when we get complaints either through calling Reno Direct or through calling 911 that gives us the data to show what's working and what's not. Um, we have Reno, you know, police, they they work 24 hours a day. They're not necessarily focused on just downtown. They are everywhere. And I think everyone knows that we um you know, we could always use more police force. Um we could also use more in every other department we have. So from a a code enforcement or a business license perspective, we don't have staff that works at night on a regular basis. We do um have staff working when we have an occasional um event where we say, "Okay, we're going to go out. We're going to talk to the bars. We're going to be out looking." So, we do have the ability to pay people overtime to do that. But again, our our key way of finding out who are the good players and who are the not is when we get complaints. And so again, we're relying on you as as um businesses in the area and people that live in the area to tell us who's being a good operator and who is not. And then from an Silver with the Chamber, thanks for this overview. If residents continue to move into downtown, do you imagine more restrictions will be implemented? I think that's a good question. I mean, I think that is a policy question that our our council is is really grappling with.

You know, there's been a lot of complaints about noise in downtown. And it's not just the the bar community. It's noise from people playing music too loud in their cars. It's noise from the motorcycles. It's noise from cars that have kind of the the louder I don't even know if it's exhaust or what it is the mufflers. Um so I mean this is an ongoing topic that I it's not limited to just this pilot program. The separate topic of noise is going to continue and we'll um continue to have those discussions with council. Whether that means they want to start a new noise ordinance for the the sea scale the base still to be determined. um whether they want our police department to start ticketing um people with loud mufflers. Again, um that that's a policy decision. So, council will continue to have those those conversations. And then again, um from Father Chuck, how do we respond if there is a concern at that time? For example, special special events have been blocking off streets without notice and the police on hand don't seem to have authority to do anything at the moment. That's a great question. And so special events, um, separate topic, but that that is something that we continue to try and do better. Um, I will have maybe Chuck, I'm going to have a separate conversation with you and our special events coordinator coordinator to see if maybe there's better things we can do to get information out information out about when streets are going to be blocked. We do post things on our city of Reno web page. Sometimes it's hard to find it and people don't know it's there. Um, but I think that's something we can always do better at is getting the information out with summer coming. Just to highlight this as well, we have a ton of special events. I mean, this is the great thing about Reno is they're trying to do more, trying to bring in um more opportunities for people to want to come downtown. So, there's going to be a lot of really, really fun things happening in downtown, but I think u we definitely need to do better for the people that live and work and just keep you guys informed. So, let

me um see if I can set something up separate from that. Maybe just more of a kind of a public outreach with our special events department to see if there's a better way we can communicate when those things are happening. All right, another question um from Chuck. Thank you. This does continue to be an issue and seems like I have to raise it every time. I'm not opposed to these things, but we have to know about it. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think um you know we're struggling as a city with we want people to live downtown and we want people to want to come downtown. So how do we kind of marry those two together to make it safe um and make it a place where you can sleep at night but also a place where people want to come downtown because Reno is 24 hours and that's that's what we're known for. So how do we do it in a way that kind of you know encourages businesses and and people but also protects those existing residents. So, we'll continue to try. The good thing about this is it's not permanent. It's a trial. If it works, great. Maybe it makes us, you know, gives us a little bit more enforcement for other businesses. This only impacts new live entertainment businesses. And so, again, um any existing business that you have struggles with, um this wouldn't impact them, but maybe there's something we can do, you know, through this this process where we can say, "Oh, this worked. maybe this security plan worked and we should try implementing that for existing bars as well. So, those are the kind of things that we're looking at and again over the next 18 months hopefully we'll have some good feedback for council. But the more that you guys as um business owners, property owners, residents, the more that you guys have, you know, your eyes and ears downtown more than we do at night. So, let us know what you're seeing and hearing and let's see if we can make it work.

Okay. interrupt really quickly. I I am unable to put the link into the Q&A chat. Um so if anyone needs it, it's just on the city's website off of development services. You'll see an initiatives and updates tab um for anyone wanting that or feel free to reach out to Angela or myself and we can get you that link, but I'm unable to communicate that link in this the Q&A section at this time. So I just wanted to point that out. Thanks Lauren. Looks like Looks like Go. Do you want to let Yep. We have Art Rangel if um we'll allow him in. And Art, whenever you're ready. I'm ready. Can you hear me? We can.

Okay. Well, good. You've got a few more people engaged today. How many uh people actually have either sent in today? We have six attendees. Six attendees. Okay. [clears throat] Um how did you get I know you went to the council. You said you're going out to the public and the bar owners to get input. How did exactly did you go about getting this word out to people?

So, a couple ways. Um, we have a list of people that have expressed interest in live entertainment. So, we have an email list um that we've included all of them. Anyone with a cabaret license that gave us their email, we have that as well through our our communications department. We call them our comm's department. They have spread the news on social media. So, anyone that is part of Reno's social media, they will have been updated. Anyone that watch city council agendas or planning commission agendas will also see it on an agenda. It's tough. I mean, this community, you know, depending on how you stay involved. Um, it's tough for us to reach out to people other than social media. Um, and and we do have some more active people, I would say, in the downtown. So, our hope too is that, you know, if you live downtown or work downtown, share it with your friends. Um we you know we we kind of rely on everyone else to you know people that you know we encourage you to share this information with and let them know that there's three more meetings between planning commission and city council. So if they missed it this week they can definitely still get involved. Um we also have a website set up and we'll include um these two videos and then my email is there for them to provide comments. So that's kind of the mechanisms we've used so far.

Okay. Well thank you. relative to that uh will these webinars be available so the well the public can view them these two yes the webinars will be posted to our website should be on there later this week or early next week okay good so what I'll do is I'll I'll put that on our montage um we have a large list of people that can and then I'll share it with the downtown um the downtown highrises as well as well as the the apartments that have now so many of them have come in uh so that's that that's good to No. So this So I presume then that this will all go to the planning commission and city council as part of the public record. All of this input you're having. Correct. Okay.

Any any public comment that I receive will be forwarded to planning commission and city council.

That's what I thought. All right. I just wanted to make u that was pretty much what I had, but I wanted to uh Gary Ceil who you've communicated with on the 24th of this month uh wrote you an email that I want to make. He's just not available. So I want to read this again for the public record and he says good morning Angela my main set of questions is about the mechanics of the evaluation of the pil program. As a resident I am not happy with the exclusion of public input through this set aside of the cup process. As a result, it is great uh importance to me that how the pilot is run and evaluated is transparent and fair. While the intent of live entertainment process changes clear uh changes is clearly to the to benefit businesses. I want to ensure that residents at the very least feel the evaluation process is equitable. I'm going to stop there and interject my own comments. any city planner understands what a c what the cup process condition use per uh permit process is invariably the zoning is about separating incompatible land uses that's its purpose and the cup process was incorporated decades ago that every now and then you're going to have a potential for incompatible land uses the initial use permit provides notification to adjacent property owners so that that way everybody has input and hopefully you can come up with a mechanism that that is good for both parties involved. That process is being eliminated through this pilot program. Reason I asked a question about how people got notified is I would have hoped that people in these in downtown

uh on Fourth Street res I'm talking property owners uh and um Midtown would have received some kind of written notice. Everybody's very busy. So that that's something I think is clearly lacking. Okay, I'm going to go back to Gary's comments. He says, 'W while I understand the value of community feedback, I don't feel it is a good idea to let the business the public determine the methods by which the pilot is deemed a success or not. It is the responsibility of the city to define the parameters of the study to ensure fairness and uh accuracy by determining the following. He has seven points. Number one, how will the city evaluate the success or failure of the pilot pilot? Number two, specifically, what metrics will be measured? I asked you that question a few days ago and you said it's going to be apparently by the city council. That really bothers me. Um, you and I are both certified city planners. Uh, city councils rely on professional staff to give them uh advice and direction. And I would would have hoped that uh everything would have come already from the staff and not expect the non AIC or non-planners on the city council to make those determinations. Number three on Gary's list is how will they be measured? We're talking about the measure the uh metrics. Now how uh will who will measure them? Number five, who will independently audit them? Number six, what unit of measurement will be necessary to to deem the pilot a success or failure? And number seven, how how will the measurements be inclusive of the potential potentiality differing perspectives of business and and residents? And then he

closes by saying as much as possible, all of these uh pilot program details should be presented by the city as as at least a starting point rather than giving the public a blank slate. Based on your presentation, I'm I'm deviating from his comments now. Angela, based on it sounds like you're leaving it up to each business to determine what the security plan is going to be with no requirements by the city. Okay, that's that's the end of my comments. Curry continues, "By making the the final evaluation of the pilot program as objective as possible, the city will avoid complaints that the study is slanted to one perspective over another and or that the methods of measurement are truly representative of the direct effects of the proposed changes to live entertainment processes and procedures. My only other question is regarding security plan enforcement. Frankly, based on history and the state of the city's budget deficit that Miss Van Bron projects be an issue well into the future, I have little confidence that the city will have the resources of adequately enforced security plans and essentially to enforce them proactively. How then can the city evaluate the success failure of the poly program if enforcement is lacking? I I'm of course open to further discussion of my comments. That ends this. I want to make a comment about the comment you made about the one bar that the city did finally close down after years and years and years of abuse. Police reports that went on forever. It I I just have never been worked for a city that has allowed something to go that long without finally pulling the

license. That concludes my comments. Thanks for your time. Okay, thanks Art. Now, I don't know if everyone can see the Q&A, so I think we got um a couple more comments. I'm just going to read those for the group. Um maybe three more have shown up. So, one from um Ann Silver with the chambers. It's hard to encourage a vibrant downtown at the same time residents want to kill the vibe. Perhaps those moving into downtown should recognize it's a city environment and noise is a factor much like those who live near an airport. And then we have a couple more comments from um Phil from the montage says 18 months is a long time for a resident to live next to a problematic venue. Will there be a 3 month or six month public report? And then secondly, has the city considered using automated smart noise sensors in pilot areas? this has been effectively used in similar size cities. So um maybe could go back to the the first question you know as I mentioned our our intent is from staff's perspective when we start getting complaints we will then go talk to the business operators and say here's the complaints we're getting whether it's noise or you know rowdy people standing in line or over serving or serving people that are minors whatever the complaints are our goal is to then go back and talk to that operator and say, "Here's what's not working. Let's figure out a way for you to make this better." That's something we are not currently great at doing. So, again, our goal with this pilot program is for those new businesses that come in that we're watching to have more of an an open conversation with them when we start getting complaints so we can get in front of it. whether that's day one or or nine months in. Again, as soon as we start getting those complaints, we will then as staff reach out to them and say, "Here's what's going on on our

end." So hopefully that gives us the ability to get in front of it quickly. It's not like, oh, every 3 months we're going to have a conversation. It's as soon as we start getting complaints. Our goal is to be able to be again more business friendly by having that conversation up front and being responsive when we get complaints from the neighbors. Um, and then has the city considered using that that smart noise sensors? Um, at this point we have not. Um, we did this past year invest in some noise meters that operate 48 hours. Um, our previous noise meters were just handheld and so we had to send staff out to like measure noise and that was just at a point in time. We do now have noise meters that we can set up that measure over 48 hours. So that's actually been really helpful so that we can see, you know, was it loud because a a car a noisy car drove by or was it consistently loud over a 4h hour window? Gives us a little bit more teeth from the code enforcement to say it wasn't a a one-off noise. It was something that was consistent over a couple hours. So we do have that. Um, again, at this point there's no talk about investing in more noise meters, but that's something as we continue that the noise discussion with council um we'll see if that's something that they want to invest in. So hopefully um that addresses everyone's questions. Again, feel free to put any other questions in and we can share that with the group. Um or feel free to wave your virtual hand if you had any any comments that you wanted to share besides that. Oh, and Art, looks like Art's back. Bring you back in, Art.

Yeah, thank you. I just Yeah, thanks. I just wanted to know when these uh two uh events that you've just done will be available for us to share with our uh community. Did you did you ask if these two meetings will be available? Yeah. Yeah. When when can we when can I get a link so I can share this with our respective communities? It will probably be either later this week, which is Friday, or early next week, meaning Monday or Tuesday. And how will we uh access that?

On our website, if you go back to you just plug in city of Reno initiatives and updates, we have a whole page that shows it'll have um the two meetings where they can watch the two meetings live. They can also see a summary of what's been discussed. We'll have the PowerPoint presentation on there and then we'll have the draft language that will be going to planning commission. So all of that is on our website. Like I said, we're going to add the the PowerPoint and the two meetings. And so depending on how long our IT department takes to approve it, uh it could be one day, it could be two days.

Okay. Thank you. And I just want one last comment. Those of us that moved into downtown were fully aware that downtowns are noisier than suburbs. The issue here is not noise. It's the excessive noise, the sea scale noise, the things you mentioned about motorcycles and things like that that are coming down. What's drawing them there? It's some of these bars that are open 2 3 4:00 in the morning. That's one of the reasons we have the mobile noise, not just the stationary noise. Thank you.

Okay. And unless there's anyone else, I think that ends on a Q&A and anyone that provides comments. So again, use use that email. Oh, sorry, one more. Um, Ann Silver from the chamber, we're going to bring you over.

Yes. Um, thank you, Angela. And I I really recognize as head of the chamber the need to balance um the quality of life for residents who have always lived downtown or those moving downtown or those who have recently moved to downtown. Um, and there's a delicate balance for their quality of life with the opportunity to see businesses in an entertainment district provide entertainment. And I think this conversation has gone on a long time and I compliment you and your team for continuing to find the middle ground. Um, so that people like Art can feel they can live in the montage and live a terrific quality of life in a beautiful building and not be uh distracted or awake all night with noise recognizing as he just said that some noise is from cars, vehicles that are driving through motorcycles. And that's no different than where I live in South Reno. I live next door to someone who revs up his motorcycle 11:00 every night to go to Tesla. and there's nothing I can do about it. So, I think this conversation is great. I think you and your team have done and Laura have done an excellent job of trying to find a happy median. And maybe not everybody gets happy. Maybe this because this is a growing city, we're going to have continued issues of how to balance growth and entertainment and residential quality of life. And uh I just applaud your efforts to try and work through this. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, Ann. And I I think that's a really good point just to say that this this is an evolving topic. So hopefully again we we are trying to do more to help the residents, to help the business. It's a struggle. We we understand your frustrations um 100%. And um again, just let's see what we can do and and and and try and bring both parties together. there's no one-sizefits-all, unfortunately. Um, so this is this is our kind of next step to try and get there. It's temporary. Let's see if it works. If it doesn't, let's try something else. Um, but again, your feedback is helpful and we appreciate all of you guys spending your time. I know it's hard sometimes on a a Thursday morning. You have lives as well and jobs and we appreciate you taking the time. So, uh, check our website again, City of Reno Initiatives and Updates, and share it with your your your friends and your co-workers and people that live downtown and work downtown and own property downtown. And we look forward to the next probably month or two of kind of seeing where this goes with planning commission and city council. So, thanks everyone and hope you have a great day.