Toot’s Bar on Mervell Dean Road in Hollywood
Leonardtown, MD — The St. Mary’s County Alcohol Beverage Board (liquor board) has imposed a fine and reduced operating hours for outdoor entertainment for a Hollywood bar. The board imposed the $250 fine (with another $250 suspended) for Toots Bar in Hollywood and ordered the bar to stop its live outdoor rock band performances at midnight on Friday and Saturday.
The board at its Aug. 11 meeting ruled that the bar on Mervell Dean Road had disturbed the neighborhood with excessive noise. Bar owner Thomas Olsen disagreed that the noise was excessive but the board ruled against him after hearing testimony from their alcohol enforcement coordinator and a neighbor who lives in Joy Chapel Estates, a quarter of a mile away.
Alcohol Enforcement Coordinator Cpl. James Stone testified he had received 20 complaints about loud noise coming from the bar in recent months. Stone noted all but three of those complaints had come from one family, the Callwells.
Cynthia Caldwell told the board about the rock music noise: “It has been very stressful and disruptive for my family. She added, “If I stand on my deck I can hear every word they play.” She said the music was loud enough to shake her cabinets.
Stone said he had gone out to check the loudness of the music on numerous occasions. He said county zoning regulations limit music emanating from an establishment to 65 decibels at the property line. He said, however, that even though they have the enforcement authority, the Office of Land Use and Growth Management does not have a properly calibrated noise meter to measure the sound.
Stone said he has a cheap, uncalibrated noise meter that showed that noise levels do exceed the limit on occasion, but the county regulations allow that and only require an average of 65 decibels. Stone said Olsen also has a better meter and takes readings several times a night. Olsen admitted that the noise may exceed the limits on occasions, such as with a drum beat, but he believes he keeps the levels within the required limits.
Stone also said it was difficult to accurately make noise measurements because they could be affected by ambient noise such as traffic on Mervell Dean Road.
Stone said that Olsen had been very cooperative and allowed him to use the bar’s meter to do his own testing. Olsen, who has owned Toots Bar for a year, told the board, “Everything I have done at this bar I try to do the right thing.” He insisted he tells the bands playing there to turn down the volume as soon as he realizes they are getting loud.
Board member Leonard Kohl suggested that Olsen be more proactive in the community and hand out his personal phone number so neighbors could call him if they had problems with what he was doing.
The number of calls received by the sheriff’s office and Caldwell’s testimony apparently impressed the board. Vice Chairman Linda Palchinsky said the number of complaints in her mind was excessive.
The bar’s bands have been playing every weekend on Friday and Saturday nights until 1:30 in the morning and on Sunday afternoon. New Board Chairman Ted Belleavoine pressed for a fine and the requirement that the bands stop playing at 11 p.m. But that motion failed to carry.
An alternate motion from Palchinsky for the midnight closure and the $500 fine suspended to $250 then carried the board. The closing requirements were for 60 days and if the bar did not run into any further problems presumably they could resume the longer hours, although Olsen said he expected the outside entertainment would end for the year at the beginning of October.
Olsen can appeal the decision within 30 days to the circuit court and he has 10 days to pay the fine.
Contact Dick Myers at dick.myers@thebaynet.com