Unbearable: Banish the noise from Budva's Old Town

Be quiet between 23 p.m. and 7 a.m., says the board that the representatives of the "Stari grad" and "Gospoština" local communities have placed at the main gate of the Old Town, thereby officially announcing the beginning of the fight to banish noise from this old core of Budva and its surroundings.

Although almost all city administrations for the past two and a half decades have only declared that they will solve the problem, the Old Town has been labeled as a "big open-air cafe" for years.

The problem they have been facing for decades was pointed out yesterday to the representatives of the Police Administration and the Municipal Police and Inspection, who were asked to respect the municipal decision from 2018 declaring the Old Town and its surroundings a Quiet Zone in the agglomeration.

At the meeting attended by the representatives of the Council of the MZ "Stari grad" Luka Vuckovic i Ognjen Balabušić, president of MZ "Gospoština" Ljubo Radjenovic, president of the Budva Association of Restaurateurs Aleksandar Jovanovic, hotelier Ivan Ivanovic, and representatives of CB Budva Željko Kadović and Communal Police and Inspection Dragan Stankovic i Saša Moračanin, it was agreed that everyone should be involved in solving the problem together.

"The occasion was an initiative launched by two central city local communities through an appeal to respect communal order during the summer season, as well as the implementation of maximum measures to respect public order and peace, especially in the evening and night hours. The participants believe that the timing of this meeting was carefully chosen to meet this year's tourist season, which everyone expects will be a record. During the previous years, it was identified that the biggest problem in these local communities was respect for communal order and respect for public order and peace. This, above all, refers to the problem of excessive noise in the Old Town as well as the contact zone of the Old Town, including Mediteranska Street. The problem of excessive noise in the evening and night hours is a burning problem that has been present for more than 25 years in this part of the metropolis of Montenegrin tourism, with which the competent services, municipal and republican authorities have unfortunately failed to deal with. Although there is a clear and fairly good legal regulation, which should protect citizens and tourists from this problem, the biggest challenge was in the implementation of legal norms and the insufficient capacity of inspection services", representatives of these two local communities Vučković and Rađenović told "Vijesta".

They stated that in the previous 25 years the inhabitants of Budva, in that central zone, do not have the basic right to a peaceful and dignified life during the summer season due to excessive noise that literally terrorizes them.

"Unfortunately, many residents are increasingly moving out of the Old Town because their basic human rights are threatened. As a result, the old city center permanently loses its soul and the charm of a Mediterranean town. The state should make it a priority to protect its citizens and provide them with the basic right to a quality life. If the citizens of one part of the city have been constantly, for decades, complaining to the competent authorities about this problem, it is high time to take action, i.e. implement the measures prescribed by law. We would like to remind you that at the end of 2018, the Budva Municipal Assembly adopted a decision declaring the MZ "Stari grad" zone a Quiet Zone in the agglomeration. This important decision was practically a dead letter until now, considering that the level of noise in the evening and night hours in this area of ​​the city and nearby parks was at a level that was many times higher than the law allowed. This continuously undermined the quality of the tourist destination for several reasons, and during the season the population in these settlements was exposed to a level of noise that is harmful to health. A large number of hotels and apartment and private accommodation facilities are faced with serious criticism from guests regarding noise in the evening and early morning hours. This unequivocally undermines the quality of their offer, reputation and seriously threatens the established pricing policy. They said that in the face of numerous negative comments on the Internet on this occasion, the facilities receive a lower quality rating, which harms the entire offer of this tourist destination", they pointed out.

Local communities emphasized that they will persevere in their goal to solve this problem and bring the situation within the legal framework. In the future, they will continue to continuously measure the noise level with the help of an authorized specialized institution in order to have clear and unambiguous indicators of how serious this problem is in the next period of communication with all competent state authorities. The collected reports will also help to determine to what extent joint activities and applied measures achieve the desired results in the process of reducing excessive noise.

Soon a network of automated noise measurement stations

In the past three years, the two local communities have launched numerous initiatives towards the municipal authorities in order to finally bring this problem under control and solve it in the long term. One of those initiatives is the immediate reason for today's gathering.

"Namely, these two local communities have jointly set up an information board at the entrance to the Old Town as well as in numerous places in the contact zone of the Old Town where citizens, restaurateurs and tourists are warned to respect public order and peace in the period from 23pm to 07am and be quiet in that area. to the city as a whole, which has been declared a Quiet Zone", they pointed out.

What is certainly additionally encouraging, they said, refers to the full support for this initiative by the relevant Ministry of Economic Development of Tourism and other competent authorities at the state level.

They also announced the imminent implementation of the project of a network of automated measuring stations for continuous noise measurement and display of results in real time over the Internet. With this, the Municipal Inspection and Police Service will receive a powerful tool for quick response and effective sanctioning of any restaurant that violates the legal provisions regarding the emission of excessive noise levels, and Budva will be included in the group of eminent tourist metropolises that will finally solve the noise problem by applying one such modern technological system.