5-Dec-19 – An ordinance passed last month creating “noise sensitive zones” may be the last word with loud, striking hotel workers who made relentless noise next to a children’s hospital every day for months.

The ordinance, passed by the Chicago City Council on November 20, authorizes the Superintendent of Police to recommend places such as hospitals, nursing homes, schools, libraries, and churches for protection against excessive noise. The City Council would still have to vote on whether a recommended area should be designated a noise sensitive zone. Suggestions could come from aldermen and the general public.

The first such zone has been declared, an area in Streeterville surrounding Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

(Above) A noise sensitive zone in Streeterville bordered by Michigan Avenue, Chicago Avenue, Lake Shore Drive, and Erie Street. (Click on image to view larger version.)

Within a noise sensitive zone, no one may “create or cause the creation of any sound through the use of a bullhorn or loud and raucous electronic amplification, or by use of an object that is struck manually or with a stick or similar item to produce a sharp percussive noise...to interfere with the functions of any school, library, church, hospital or nursing home, or other noise sensitive activity.”

A noise sensitive zone would be identified by signs installed by the Chicago Department of Transportation. Police could then enforce noise complaints within a zone.

2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins introduced the ordinance on June 12, 2019. Lurie Children’s Hospital and Northwestern Memorial Hospital already had “quiet zones” but Hopkins sought to expand the definition of excessive noise to include noise-making devices used by the strikers.

Strike continues outside Cambria

When members of Unite Here Local 1 went on strike on September 7, 2018, they made a constant racket while picketing outside 26 hotels, including the Cambria Chicago Magnificent Mile located next to Lurie Children’s Hospital on East Superior Street. That strike begins its 454th day on Thursday.

Strikers used drums, loud chanting, megaphones, sirens, whistles, even pots and pans to communicate their demands to hotel managers, hotel guests, neighbors of the hotel, and neighboring businesses. The noise echoed in the concrete canyons of Streeterville, sometimes as early as 7:15 a.m. and at least one time going all night.

In June 2019, city prosecutor Natalia Delgado sent a cease-and-desist letter to Unite Here Local 1, informing the union of violations of the Chicago Noise Ordinance and an agreement in December 2018 that settled a lawsuit the union had filed against the city.

(Left) Frame from security video of strikers in front of the Cambria hotel at night.

The letter was presented in person to a union representative outside the hotel by a Chicago Police Department supervisor on the morning of June 13. It warned that if noise levels were not reduced by 7:00 p.m. that evening, the city would “take appropriate enforcement action,” including issuing citations to strikers that would require them to attend administrative hearings and risk fines.

The next day, strikers were reduced to using picket signs and their unamplified voices to protest the hotel’s refusal to give in to their demands.