Windsor to Detroit: Turn Down Motown Sound

The Chene Park Amphitheater is a busy venue on Detroit’s riverfront. A party there Sunday night that drew 2,000 people prompted complaints from neighbors across the border in Windsor, Ontario. (Photo via Creative Commons)

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Dial it back, tone it down and quiet the heck down, Detroit.

At least that’s what some people across the border in Windsor, Ontario, are saying after Sunday night’s boisterous “Ultimate White Party,” which featured sea of about 2,000 people, dressed mostly in white, dancing to loud music at the Chene Park riverfront amphitheater and carrying on until the early morning hours.

The speakers were aimed squarely across the Detroit River toward Windsor, a departure from usual configurations that better contain the noise. Windsor City Councillor Chris Holt said the ruckus was heard across Windsor and residents of his ward weren’t happy about it.

“I don’t know if you’re one of the six people in Windsor that didn’t experience the Ultimate White Party noise that was coming from Chene Park in Detroit,” Holt said at a Windsor City Council meeting, according to CKLW-AM (800). “I received a ton of complaints about the noise that went on until about 3 a.m.”

In a letter, Windsor officials plan to appeal to Detroit officials to enforce the city’s noise ordinance, which restricts speakers with an audible range of more than 50 feet.

The Ultimate White Party was one of a growing number of events planned near the riverfront as part of downtown Detroit’s revitalization.

Event planner Rome Ward told the Free Press that for Windsor officials “to complain about the sound from the White Party sounds crazy.” He said the deejay stopped playing music at 1:45 a.m. Monday.

David Rudolph, a spokesman for Right Productions, which manages and promotes Chene Park operations, acknowledged that “clearly, the sound was a problem.”

“It didn’t take long for (the noise) to travel across the river, which is a mile wide,” Rudolph told the Free Press. “This is a bit of a learning lesson.”

Canadian Ed Kelly lives five blocks from the riverfront, and he told the Free Press the music was so loud he thought it was coming from his neighbor’s house, and so clear he “knew the song that they were singing.”

For others, though, the noise sounded like hope coming out of Detroit’s Renaissance Center.

“I’m encouraged by it,” Scott Gregory, who lives six blocks from the riverfront, told the Free Press. “It means there’s something going on. It’s a healthy thing.”

This doesn’t figure to become an international incident. Detroit city officials say they hear what their neighbors are saying and are addressing the noise issue.