Pelham Manor neighborhood says sound from Mount Vernon music festival shook homes

Pelham Manor neighborhood says sound from Mount Vernon music festival shook homes

Some community members in Pelham Manor say a music festival in Mount Vernon was so loud Sunday that it shook their homes.
Cellphone video recorded the sounds of the Sandz Caribbean Music Festival reaching into a Pelham Manor neighborhood on Father’s Day.

Paul Duffy, who lives across from Hutchinson Field in Mount Vernon, says he is used to the noise from Hutchinson River Parkway but this was something else.

"That’s like living next to a rail road tracks. You get used to that, but this one it shakes your whole house,” he says.

Almost a dozen of his neighbors complained to both the city of Mount Vernon and the village of Pelham Manor. They said the festival, which lasted at least seven hours, was excessive and shouldn’t have been allowed so close to a residential neighborhood.

The cleanup was underway Monday following the event that Mount Vernon Mayor Richard Thomas said would draw thousands of partiers to the field, which was covered with 500 tons of sand imported from the Caribbean.           

The festival was meant to ramp up economic activity in the city, serving as a glimpse of the mayor’s vision to create an artificial beach next to the Hutchinson River.
Pelham Manor Mayor Jennifer Monachino Lapey told News 12 that the village was working with Mayor Thomas to reduce noise. Thomas agreed to limit decibel levels and point speakers away from the village's direction. She says that it appears that didn't happen on Sunday. Mayor Lapey says Mayor Thomas has agreed to build a sound wall, but no word on when that would happen.
Mayor Thomas says the city did point the speakers away from the Pelham Manor homes. He added that the event had the proper permits and that Hutchinson Field is separated from Pelham Manor by the Hutchinson River, Cloverfield and the Hutchinson River Parkway.