{"id":484481,"date":"2026-11-03T01:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-11-03T01:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/484481\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T01:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T01:50:12","slug":"noise-in-the-city-finding-the-middle-ground-for-nightlife-and-code-compliance-for-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/484481\/","title":{"rendered":"Noise in the city: Finding the middle ground for nightlife and code compliance for businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Photography by Lauren Allen<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a year since music lovers\u2019 staple Revelers Hall in the Bishop Arts District received an initial warning for breaking code. <\/p>\n

The first violation found was charging a music cover fee, a practice the restaurant had for over six years. Then, it was for keeping their doors open. And they weren\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n

Co-owner Jason Roberts says he first saw Deep Ellum\u2019s The Free Man owner, John Jay Myers, share about the business receiving citations in October 2025. Then,\u00a0 Revelers Hall received their own notice a week later.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we brought it public,\u201d Roberts says. \u201cWe went online and just mentioned, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re also struggling with this, and it\u2019s not something we knew about and obviously something we need to get rectified,\u2019 but we were worried about being shut down.\u201d <\/p>\n

The calls for support came in quickly, leading to the formation of the Hospitality and Nightlife Task Force, which was announced on Halloween 2025. The task force initially came with three main objectives: reviewing the music fee issue, reexamining the City\u2019s noise ordinance and exploring the creation of a new entertainment permit that supports innovation and flexibility.<\/p>\n

Jesse Lopez, a Bishop Arts neighbor with small business experience, joined the task force after expressing a desire to become more involved in city matters to District 1 Council member Chad West.<\/p>\n

Lopez says some of what he observed in the Bishop Arts District was an increase in developers over the last five years building around the already active nightlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we\u2019ve always known that Bishop Arts is Bishop Arts,\u201d he told the Advocate in April. \u201cIt\u2019s like, we can\u2019t change the way that Bishop Arts runs just because there\u2019s a new development in town. So there was a lot of tension there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that there were a lot of complaints from the local community regarding noise.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve spoken to one of my good friends (who) owns Taco y Vino \u2026 he kept getting complaints about noise,\u201d Lopez says. \u201cAnd he\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019ve always played music from 6 to 9 p.m. It\u2019s part of my dinner experience.\u2019 But the building behind him kept getting noise complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to working on the task force, Lopez says most of what was discussed was the need to upgrade City Code \u201cto basically make code enforcement a little bit fairer for all establishments.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that surprised me, that blew my mind, was that Chapter 14, which is like basically the code that has been enforced in Dallas, is like Prohibition era-type of code,\u201d Lopez says. \u201cWe never really updated a lot of things around nightlife and hospitality, so it just blew my mind that we were operating like an old, legacy city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chapter 14 specifically defines Dance Halls, the licenses required, fees and the punishments that come with operating what could be considered one out of compliance. <\/p>\n

He says that some of the task force discussion centered around other cities, from Sacramento to Philadelphia, and looking into how those cities thought about City Code.<\/p>\n

Those recommendations were then presented at Life in Deep Ellum on Feb. 18, 2026, and went through the Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee, chaired by District 3 Council member Zarin Gracey. <\/p>\n

When we spoke to Roberts in the spring about the updates, he said that one of the motivations for working on these changes was FIFA. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a couple of rationales from the City\u2019s standpoint, to see what should move this forward,\u201d Roberts said in April. \u201cOriginally what I heard some of the rationale was, we need to get some of this addressed just because we have this major international event occurring, and it\u2019s now created this weird issue that affects a lot of our live music or live \u2018entertainment spaces.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Well, FIFA came and went last season, and the Hospitality and Nightlife Task Force recommendations were still making their way to fruition.<\/p>\n

Some of those recommendations in the works have been advocated for previously, Stephanie Keller Hudiburg, executive director of the Deep Ellum Foundation, noted. Though she did not participate in the task force, she says the Deep Ellum Community Safety Plan the foundation developed in 2022 and 2026 discusses nightlife quite a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also were kind of the architects of the noise task force report on how do we integrate noise, and we did brief that to Quality of Life a couple years ago, and so that was in that was integrated into the current iteration of the entertainment permit, so we\u2019ve been kind of working on this stuff for a minute,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

The code department had previously created a dedicated Deep Ellum task force prior to the citywide nighttime task force, which Hudiburg adds was partly at the foundation\u2019s request because of a lack of code officers at night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe City of Dallas has a lot of code officers, and we often find that we end up advocating for things that the city does and goods and services that are provided during the day to equally be considered for the nighttime,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd so there\u2019s a lot of code officers that do weeds and go and look in residential neighborhoods, but we didn\u2019t have enough code officers working at night, and so the code department had discussed at a conference a couple years ago and announced that they were going to have an increase in nighttime code support and that actually hadn\u2019t happened yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The increased code support citywide certainly made its mark since, highlighting a desire for change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to modernize, from a policy standpoint, in the city to meet nightlife where it\u2019s at, and that means making sure that it\u2019s working for the businesses that are serving that important cultural need in our city and economic need,\u201d Hudiburg says. \u201cBut also making sure that it does work for our residents, that it does happen in a safe manner, and so those are all complicated things that really require thought and intentionality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Task force recommendations with the staff implementation and draft ordinance proposal were presented to the Quality of Life, Arts and Culture Committee on June 15, 2026, with the committee deliberating how to move forward with the recommendations throughout the summer.<\/p>\n

In a brief summary, those recommendations included:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Implementing new versions of entertainment license and a late-night entertainment license.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Creating security management systems that add additional late-night requirements.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Updated regulations for sound management.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Moving to an \u201ceducation first\u201d strategy for enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Updating Chapter 14 of City Code.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot of enforcement happening, and I don\u2019t remember the education piece,\u201d Gracey says. \u201cI just don\u2019t, and I don\u2019t even know what the education piece looked like, but it doesn\u2019t feel like, based on some of the people that are reaching out, it doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s happening at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that there are some bad actors, Gracey adds that he\u2019s concerned about how these updates are taking effect.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not playing out in real time like it reads on paper, and again, I think the only issue is that entertainment license piece, and right now it just sounds like, feels like, everybody\u2019s just getting tickets for it, and potentially having to go and appeal their (current) license.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the time it is taking to make these updates, some establishments have suffered. <\/p>\n

The Dallas Morning News reported in September that dozens of cases regarding code violations have been at the Dallas Municipal Court, with some tickets reaching \u201c$2,000 at most if a defendant\u2019s found guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the nightlife and hospitality changes continue to go through different iterations to City staff, the latest updates at the time of writing were heard by the Arts and Culture Advisory Commission on Oct. 15, 2026. <\/p>\n

With the proposed Entertainment Licenses, because there is a shift in fees, the City Council can not yet entertain the latest proposal. A fee study via a third party has to take place to ensure that the fee that will be charged for the application of the license is included in the council action item.<\/p>\n

The City Manager\u2019s office authorized the special permission required for the fee study on Oct. 15, 2026, via a special needs memo.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially, the special needs memo allows us to move through an expedited procurement process rather than the traditional solicitation process (for the fee study),\u201d Director of the Office of Arts and Culture Martine Elyse Philippe said during the meeting. \u201cAnd my dream is that we will get this council action item squared away before the end of this calendar year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nighttime Economy Division of the Office of Arts and Culture is currently developing the license application platform. Educational materials are also in the works, still in collaboration with the Hospitality and Nightlife Task Force.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are working on drafting and reviewing some educational resources that will support businesses in understanding and navigating this new entertainment license and its requirements,\u201d she said during the meeting. \u201cOne of the efforts that I\u2019m most excited about is the Good Neighbor Guidebook, mainly because we have so many entertainment districts, if you will, close to residential neighborhoods, and we certainly want our operators to be good neighbors and to ensure that residents, especially legacy residents who are watching their neighborhoods take a turn into having a thriving nightlife exist that, again, they\u2019re being good neighbors and working to ensure that our residents can maintain a certain quality of life while we have these thriving businesses exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The council still has not officially implemented the new recommendations fully as of writing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to do it in a way that creates, that continues the longevity. I don\u2019t want this to unintentionally hurt restaurants and our nighttime economy by activating like a grumpy old man,\u201d Gracey says. \u201cI\u2019m a grump, you know what I mean, by shutting everything down. So that\u2019s what I\u2019m concerned about.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the shift from the music fee at Revelers Hall to optional support from patrons, the musician funding has dwindled.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is once people see that, \u2018I don\u2019t have to pay this thing,\u2019 a lot, about 50% of people, don\u2019t pay it,\u201d Roberts says. \u201cAnd so it just means that we\u2019re unable to compensate the bands as much as we were before. And so we are starting to size the bands down. We\u2019re going from five-piece bands to three-piece artists, and just to make the numbers work. So ultimately, this has kind of hurt Dallas\u2019s live artists, live musicians. It\u2019s giving them less venues to perform at.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photography by Lauren Allen It\u2019s been a year since music lovers\u2019 staple Revelers Hall in the Bishop Arts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25384,899,102,147372,104,103,29919,161890,162905,88128,162906,128009,20869,162907,161893],"class_list":["post-484481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-bishop-arts-district","tag-chad-west","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-code-compliance","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-entertainment-district","tag-hospitality-and-nightlife-task-force","tag-jason-roberts","tag-jesse-lopez","tag-john-jay-myers","tag-noise-ordinance","tag-revelers-hall","tag-stephanie-keller-hudiburg","tag-the-free-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}