Noisy Colonial Zone business face fines, shutdown

SANTO DOMINGO.- The owners of nightclubs, bars and other businesses whose din has roiled residents of the Colonial Zone will be fined and taken to court, and could ultimately be shuttered for violating Law 64-00.

"The Executive Branch recently issued a decree establishing a commission formed by the Environmental Prosecutor, the SENPA (Environmental Protection Agency), Interior and Police, the City Council and the Health Ministry to reduce the problem of noise," said SENPA director Francisco Flores.

The official said the agencies regulate, as stipulated in the law, the emission of noise and sounds which annoy or harm the environment and the health of the air in residential, urban and rural areas, as well as the use of fixed or mobile loudspeakers.

The warning comes in the heels of complaints from religious and other sectors affected by the noise which plagues the Colonial City’s residents, Flores said he will work together to make the solution permanent.