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Forest Park’s village council voted unanimously on Aug. 8 to allow amplified music in the beer garden — but only once a month.
Village municipal bylaws previously only allowed bars and restaurants to play acoustic music on outdoor patios, and venues had to obtain an entertainment license to play. The amendment specifically limits amplified music to beer gardens, but it still represents a notable change. Commissioner Maria Maxham suggested removing the monthly limit, but a majority of council members felt it would be a useful guardrail to have the new policy when the village had the opportunity to see how it worked in practice.
At its July 25 meeting, the Village Council considered Exit Strategy Brewing Company’s application for a recreational license at 7700 Madison Street. The brewery wants a ’90s cover band’ performance on August 13th from 2-5pm as part of a larger event from 1-7pm Burns suggested that the village should consider allowing outdoor sound amplification.
“Given that the working hours are not as late as they used to be, maybe the council could allow the amplification of outdoor music,” he said.
The Council deemed it worth considering and decided to postpone the decision to withdraw the strategic application until 8 August.
At that meeting, the village committee not only approved the application, but also approved amendments to the municipal regulations. The new rules state that, in this case, “patio” means “beer garden” and explicitly prohibits music playing in roadside cafes. These venues also cannot play music on their terraces more than one day per month.
Finally, the ordinance states that any recreational license cannot be valid for more than one month. While this has become standard practice for village committees recently, it has only now been codified into law.
Maxham argues it could be more flexible as the council is already reviewing all performances on a case-by-case basis as part of the entertainment licence application process.
“I just thought it might be a little unnecessarily strict,” she said.
Burns thinks caution is warranted, at least initially.
“We’re just starting to play amplified music on patios,” he said. “I think we should walk before we run,”
Commissioner Ryan Nero said the village had been considering changing the structure of recreational permits and that the extra checks might not be there if they weren’t removed entirely.
“I rode on this with Joe Burns,” he said. “Let’s push it out and wait and see what happens.”
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