Q&A: Is there a legal way to get the Rain Forest Cafe near my work to turn down their sound system?
Question by kenowhereman: Is there a legal way to get the Rain Forest Cafe near my work to turn down their sound system?
I work in a very large mall that has a restaurant called The Rain Forest Cafe. This restaurant plays blaring and obnoxious, pseudo ethnic music throughout this portion of the mall. The store I work at is directly across from it.
Depending on the day of the week, the time of the day, and how busy the mall is they will often turn this music up even louder to attract people farther away in the mall. I’ve briefly talked to a few random employees of the restaurant and one person on the mall staff about it. They have all said that the music levels they use are set in the contract.
Here are my issues:
1. The music is so loud at times that we need to yell for our customers to hear us and we need to at least speak very loudly at all times even at the lowest sound levels.
2. The music is a short track list of about 15 songs. Only 2 or 3 songs change every few months. I have now worked in this location for over one and a half years. The repetition of these songs is starting to make me feel like I am on the verge of a mental breakdown.
3. We have constant customer complaints about the noise from their restaurant.
4. In order to promote our own business we have to turn our in store sound system to a level higher than that of what the restaurant is playing so that customers can hear our advertisements. This can be ear piercingly loud and can make it impossible to communicate.
Basically, is there anything I can do about this? I plan on trying to talk to mall management but if this is in the contract for the restaurant I don’t see what I can do. Is there a way I can measure the decibels (cheaply) to see if they’re playing it too loudly? I don’t think my store would be willing to make an issue out of it with the mall, especially if it would require any legal action, regardless of possible business loss due to the sound.
Any ideas would be helpful. Thanks.
Best answer:
Answer by mega
See if there are public nuisance laws where you live that you can bring to bear.
If nothing else you could consider filing a lawsuit (after trying to resolve the issue politely with them first, of course) because you can demonstrate undue financial harm done to your business because of them.
Add your own answer in the comments!