Windsor begs Detroit: Tone down the noisy parties!

A late-night party at Chene Park on Sunday was a little too wild for our Canadian neighbors across the river.

The Ultimate White Party, an annual riverfront event where guests are expected to dress in all-white outfits, was playing music into the early morning hours, prompting some Windsor residents to complain.

Now, Windsor city officials are drafting a letter to send Detroit about the noise concerns. City Councillor Chris Holt, whose ward includes the Windsor riverfront across from Chene Park, brought up the noise complaints at a City Council meeting on Monday.

“I don’t know if you’re one of the six people in Windsor that didn’t experience the Ultimate White Party noise that was coming from Chene Park in Detroit,” Holt said, according to CKLW-AM (800) in Windsor. “I received a ton of complaints about the noise that went on until about 3 a.m.”

Holt did not respond to Free Press messages seeking comment.

The Ultimate White Party is one of a growing number of events along Detroit’s riverfront as part of the city’s revitalization. Detroit’s West Riverfront Park, opened last year, sits on 20 grassy acres framed by the Detroit skyline and Ambassador Bridge, with space for more than 20,000 people. The park hosted this summer the Downtown Hoedown, Jimmy Buffett and this weekend will feature the two-day Mo Pop indie rock festival.

Norma Coleman, chief of staff to Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens, said the city clerk was preparing a letter to send the Detroit city clerk. Coleman said the letter could be sent this week.

Coleman said there are festivals on Windsor’s riverfront, too, and noise from parties on both sides of the river is expected. But noise from Sunday’s White Party went on later than usual, she said.

“I think it was that it went to quite early in the morning,” Coleman said. “We expect those sorts of things. We both have festivals that occur throughout the summer.”

Canadians who lived just over the water said they could hear the music clearly.

So clearly, in fact, that resident Ed Kelly, who lives in Windsor’s Walkerville neighborhood, thought at first that music from this weekend had been coming from a neighbor’s house.

“You could hear the singing about as plain as day,” added Sue Kelly, who lives with Ed five blocks from the water. “I knew the song that they were singing.”

And Conrad Whybra, who lives right by the river, thought the noise meant that his building was having a utility issue.

But these residents and others didn’t seem to mind much at all.

“My kids slept, I slept, my cat slept,” laughed Christopher Tassey, a musician. “If it draws people there, it’s fine. For me life’s too ... short to care about a bunch of noise.”

A couple residents mentioned they were just glad to hear music from the Motor City emerging at all.

“I’m encouraged by it,” said Scott Gregory, who lives six blocks inland in Walkerville. “It means there’s something going on. It’s a healthy thing.”

The annual Movement techno-music festival, on the other hand, was on a different order of magnitude. “That was unreal,” Sue Kelly said. “The house was vibrating. It was like we were right there, but we weren’t.”

A spokesman for Mayor Mike Duggan said recreation department officials told him the management company for Chene Park did receive some complaints, which it is addressing with the organization that rented the venue to put on its event that night.

“From what I understand, the event was authorized to go until 2 a.m., but it was the level of the sound that was the issue,” Duggan spokesman John Roach said in an e-mail.

Event planner Rome Ward, who organized the Ultimate White Party, said it was no different than the event in past years. “This is our fourth time doing that event at Chene Park. It was no different than any other concert or other event at Chene Park,” Ward said in a telephone interview. “For them to complain about the sound from the White Party sounds crazy.”

Ward said the party included about 2,000 guests, a fashion show, a few local acts and a deejay who played from 9 p.m. until about 1:45 a.m. Ward said the party had a stage set up farther from the riverfront than the park’s amphitheater.

Although the stage was farther from the riverfront, the speaker setup directed the sound southward, toward Canada, instead of toward the north, which would be the case if the normal amphitheater setup was used, said David Rudolph, spokesman for the Right Productions, which manages and promotes Chene Park operations.

“Clearly, the sound was a problem. It didn’t take long for (the noise) to travel across the river, which is a mile wide,” Rudolph said. “This is a bit of a learning lesson.”

Rudolph said the White Party setup is unusual and will not be used for other events, such as the Aretha Franklin concert on Aug. 22.

“Canadian residents will not have to worry about being disturbed about the melodic voice of Aretha Franklin,” he said.

This isn’t the first time Windsor residents have complained about noise coming from Detroit. In 2011, a mysterious humming noise was plaguing residents in Windsor. Canadian authorities said they traced it to the heavy industrial complex on Zug Island in Detroit’s neighboring community of River Rouge.

Contact Joe Guillen: 313-222-6678 or jguillen@freepress.com