James Young, co-owner and booker of beloved Melbourne hard rock venue Cherry Bar, has shared his reply to a disgruntled neighbour who recently emailed him to demand he lower noise levels in the venue “by at least a half”.

“Hi (name withheld),” Young opened. “Cherry has been successfully operating for 14 years as a late night live music venue. We have never had a noise complaint.”

“The good news for you is that we are pro-actively investing in $100,000 worth of soundproofing presently. We are approximately three weeks into the four week process.”

“I am in Spain presently, back Thursday, let’s stay in touch. We want happy neighbours,” he concludes, before signing off.

As Tone Deaf reported last week, the neighbour, who claimed to be a resident living in “the newly established apartment beside the Cherry Bar”, wrote to Young complaining of the noise emanating from the AC/DC Lane establishment.

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“The noise made by your bar is affecting my sleep and work, especially since it lasts beyond mid night,” wrote the neighbour, whose name was withheld. “There are many working adults and students living in this apartment, so the noise produced by your bar made it very difficult for us to rest at home after a long day of work.”

The arrogance of a resident who moved into a building beside a live music venue that’s been happily operating for over a decade and immediately begins complaining about the noise didn’t go over well with fans of the venue or Tone Deaf readers.

“If you don’t like it, move out,” wrote one commenter, while the sentiments of others were summed up by a response left by fellow Cherry Bar neighbour Phil De Carlo, who wrote, “This really pisses me right the fuck off. If you don’t want to live next to a music venue, fuck off somewhere else.”

However, as Young himself told Tone Deaf, he felt it was best “to be courteous”, particularly in the precarious climate in which most Australian live music venues operate today.

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“I do want friendly neighbourly relations,” he said, “but I just had to check in with a wider group to see if they shared my mortification at the tone and threatening nature of this confronting new city resident who seems remarkably unconnected to real city life and culture.”

“Maybe you guys can laugh at this, but it’s no laughing matter for me or other threatened live music venues because this one person can close us down. Whatever happened to the notion of the ‘common good’? I weep for our future if we can’t win this battle…”

As Young writes in his response, the Cherry Bar is currently undergoing soundproofing renovations, funded by a recent crowdfunding campaign which managed to raise a staggering $50,000 in under 24 hours.

At the time, Young said it sent “a message to the world that people love and cherish live music and will scrape and fight to protect what they love in the face of rampant soulless residential development”.

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