La Tulipe court ruling forces Montreal to change rules for concert venues

The City of Montreal says it's acting quickly to protect music venues after a Quebec Court of Appeal decision earlier this week forced the temporary closure of historic concert venue La Tulipe over noise complaints.

"The judgment surprised us all, and we have to act immediately because all music venues are threatened," Plateau-Mont-Royal borough mayor and head of the city's executive committee Luc Rabouin said at a news conference Wednesday.

Rabouin said the borough council would hold an extraordinary meeting Thursday to modify the specific noise regulation the appeal court cited in its decision.

"We will exclude concert venues, bars, restaurants and cultural centres from the application of Section 9, which says no audible noise can be heard from a neighbour," Rabouin said.

The new rules may not be enough to nullify the Court of Appeal's decision and save La Tulipe, which cancelled all its upcoming events after the ruling.

Claude Larivée, the president and co-founder of Tribu, the company that owns La Tulipe, told CBC Wednesday the rule change was a step in the right direction, but he said he's far from reassured.

"The court of appeal decision is a nightmare for us," Larivée said.

"The judgment forbids us from having amplified sound in a designated heritage space which can only be used a performance hall," he said. 

"We are owners of walls whose sole purpose is concerts and we can't have concerts."

The rule change will only apply in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough — which is home to many music venues — but Rabouin said he expected other boroughs to adopt similar measures soon.

"Everyone is worried, and that's why we're immediately changing our regulations, because the impact is enormous," Rabouin said.

The Court of Appeal decision focused on Section 9 of the borough's noise regulations, which prohibits any noise from sound equipment, such as loudspeakers, from reaching neighbouring properties, regardless of intensity.

Rabouin said Section 9 was never intended to apply to music venues.

"It aims to regulate neighbourhood disturbances. There's someone at home, his neighbour plays his music too loud, he calls the police, they come and tell the neighbours to turn down the volume," Rabouin said.