Belmont-Devilliers' history is tied to its music. Now, music has become the tension point.

Part of what makes Pensacola’s Belmont-DeVilliers neighborhood so desirable is its rich musical history. The sound of jazz and blues once filled the streets and celebrities made appearances in Gussie’s Record Shop. However, house-shaking loud music has become a serious point of tension for Belmont-DeVilliers residents who claim they can no longer sleep on Friday or Saturday nights.

Dozens of residents shared their concerns at Wednesday night’s Belmont-DeVilliers Neighborhood Association Meeting in conjunction with the Pensacola Police Department to request increased surveillance and police presence in the community during the late-night hours.

Cars full of people congregating in city parking lots bumping music, particularly outside of the Bunny Club and Elks Lodge, is rubbing some residents the wrong way, who say there has been little action from the Pensacola Police Department to stop it, as of late. In the past, police involvement during the late-night hours made a significant difference, residents say.

“From the police department standpoint, we are working with our staff, particularly our nighttime CRA officers, to spend some presence over here,” Pensacola Police Chief Eric Randall told the News Journal. “We’ll be meeting with a couple of the business owners and the Association to set out some action plans for the neighborhood to work together to resolve any noise complaints. But we’ll be out here, making sure we do everything from a law enforcement perspective to make sure the community remains safe, and that we can continue the great quality of life that residents deserve over here.”

The police department has received a string of mixed noise complaints over the past month, and Randall said they are working to find patterns in time of day and day of the week to identify what the reports have in common.

“This is one great community that steps up and works in partnership with the police department to make sure we’re maintaining a great quality of life for the community,” Randall said.

Peter and Chantale Connelly, who have lived in the 500 block of West Belmont Street for the past five and a half years, started noticing the late-night to early-morning noise on weekends over the past two years. However, the situation has worsened lately when neighboring Bunny Club reopened this year, sometimes staying open into the early morning.

Just this past Friday, Chantale said she made the first police report at about 1:15 a.m. but called again later in the early morning since the police had not yet come by. She ended up sitting outside on her porch through the night, unable to sleep, until the last song played, and the last car eventually pulled away at about 5:30 a.m.

"I was awake for the whole thing," she said.

This was not an unusual occurrence for the Connellys and their neighbors, and more of a Friday and Saturday night ritual. It’s not only the noise from music with lyrics that "you can't put in a newspaper," Peter Connelly said, but the other issues coming with it that they feel are negatively impacting their neighborhood’s quality of life.

Bottles littering the yard the morning after. Drunk drivers out on the streets. Parking on sidewalks with tops down to blast music. The disruptions have become so great that they have even considered looking for a new place to live.

Some of the attendees of the meeting suggested restricting the hours of late-night businesses or perhaps even closing them.

Truth for Youth founder and community advocate Rev. John Powell said although they do need to work to find a solution, he does not want to see any local businesses shut down, even those that specifically cater to the late-night crowd.

Businesses like The Dwarf Chicken Stand have made their name being open at sporadic hours through the night, sometimes staying open at 4 a.m. through the weekend, he said.

When moving to the Belmont-DeVilliers neighborhood, he said it is important for people to keep in mind the Black history and the culture and the businesses that come with it.

“Now we have a new insurgent of people moving in from all over the place and they want to correct the behavior and the environment that they’re living in. They want it to be done the way that they want to, but we have to realize that people have been here in Belmont-DeVilliers long before they ever thought of coming to Belmont-DeVilliers. Some of the things they think are outrageous, are not really outrageous.”

“We have to remember that one time there was an all-Black neighborhood, and gentrification is taking place because there's only probably been maybe about 10% Blacks that live in this neighborhood now, and those people are upset and disappointed,” Powell said. “The people that moved here from out of state, they think they can come here, and they can just move things. Well, they can complain…you can’t shut people down because you feel like you got a problem with it.”

He does, however, think there is a level of disrespect coming from young people specifically who are visiting the neighborhood that needs to stop.

“Unfortunately, morals, values have been thrown under the bus. Young people don’t have many morals, they just say what they want to say, and cuss, and be very disrespectful. But this needs to be corrected because the neighbors deserve to be able to go to bed at one or two o’clock in the morning and not be awakened by a whole bunch of noise,” Powell said.

The neighborhood association meeting drew dozens of attendees, many of whom were Black and also expressed concerns about noise, disruption and safety issues associated with the late night crowd.

Still, in private conversations, many residents expressed concerns that the character of the neighborhood was changing, and its soul was being chipped away as away high-dollar development slowly shifts the area toward being another cookie-cutter slice of suburbia.

Marcus McCreary, manager of the Unity Entertainment Complex that includes The Bunny Club, said that music being part of The Blocks weekend scene is not anything different than what has been happening since the '80s. The difference is how the demographics of the neighborhood have changed.

“It’s literally called ‘The Blocks’ because cars rolled around the four corners of Belmont-DeVilliers, this whole area, they rode these blocks, and they played loud music and they had big rims. This is the story. That’s why there’s two Black clubs right here. That is what this place is known for,” he said. “So, when people come down, and they're just doing what they've always done since the '80s. Like this is what's always happened here. So, gentrification is changing that and everyone just needs to be put on notice, that’s it. If we don't want that crowd down here, all we have to do is tell them. I'm very sure people will start to catch on and move on from this area."

McCreary said he hopes to find events that will appeal to those in walking distance of the club that will meet the needs of a changing neighborhood.

Randall echoed that the police department will be working alongside the community in order to find a compromise for the mixed-use neighborhood that meets the needs across the board for residential, business and entertainment.

“You have a neighborhood here that has a mixed-use neighborhood," Randall said. "You have residential, and business and you also have entertainment — so I can't say whether that (the number of noise complaints) is average or above average, but any noise complaint is concerning. Especially when you have it coming from citizens and especially late at night, any noise complaint is concerning. We take it seriously and we want to work with the community and the business community to make sure we address it in the most appropriate manner.”

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Belmont-Devilliers residents up in arms over late-night music