St. Lambert pushing ahead with anti-noise lawsuit

Weekend concerts at Jean Drapeau Park are a pain for residents of St. Lambert

After being repeatedly rebuffed in its attempts to negotiate an agreement to lower the volume of outdoor concerts, the city of St. Lambert reaffirmed it is pushing ahead with a lawsuit against the city of Montreal and Evenko.

Over the summer St. Lambert has been unable to convince Montreal or Evenko to come to agreement to turn down the sound, with Montreal mayor Denis Coderre quipping he would rather go crowdsurfing at a concert than sit down with his suburban counterpart.

In July Quebec Superior Court ruled against St. Lambert's attempt to win an injunction to stop concerts from happening.

This week St. Lambert city council voted to continue with their lawsuit after making one final attempt to convince Montreal to be a good neighbour.

"Conscious of the need to responsibly manage public finances, the city of St. Lambert will formally invite Mr. Denis Coderre, mayor of Montreal, Mrs. Daniel Henkel, president of the Board of the Jean Drapeau Park Society, and Mr. Geoff Molson, president of Evenko, to sit around a table and come up with a permanent solution, that is satisfactory and economical for all parties," wrote the city in a statement.

St. Lambert residents have been complaining about excessive noise coming from concerts at Jean Drapeau Park and car races on the Gilles Villeneuve racetrack for years, but say the problem got worse about five years ago when the number of weekend-long concerts increased.

Residents say they now face half-a-dozen weekends each summer when the noise coming across the water is so loud it is impossible to have a conversation outside, and can still be felt indoors.

The next step in the court case is a hearing on Nov. 25, 2015, when St. Lambert responds to Evenko and the city of Montreal's legal request to have the lawsuit dismissed.