Town shuts down new music venue

SCARBOROUGH — Officials from Scarborough’s code enforcement office have shut down a concert venue they claim is an unlicensed business, but which the property owner says was merely a low-key attempt to support the arts.

In February and again Aug. 13, Paul and Cheryl Williams hosted concerts in their home at 259 Broadturn Road – a site they listed online as “The Brick House.” Additional concerts scheduled for Aug. 30 and Nov. 3 have since been canceled.

The shows, said Paul Williams, were private, invitation-only events for groups of 15-20 people, mostly family and friends. No admission was charged, no food or beverages were sold and no neighbors disturbed. Each event was more like a private party than a concert, said Williams, noting that the only money that changed hands was at the end of the night, when a hat was passed for the artists.

“We thought it was a good idea,” said Williams. “Every single person who came was over 40. It wasn’t a rowdy thing. It was just people who want to support local musicians but who don’t really want to go to a bar.”

That’s the concept behind the website www.concertsinyourhome.com, where Williams said he got the idea. The site was founded five years ago by Florida resident Fran Snyder, to connect willing musicians with willing hosts. Snyder charges a membership fee of the artists listed on his site, who then use it as a networking tool to find venues at which they can play.

Hosts list what type of music they are interested in – about 90 percent prefer acoustic – and musicians generally look for places to play along their touring routes. The public, says Snyder, can see the artist info, but nothing on the host other than the name of a town.

Hosts in Maine are listed in Gorham, Eddington, Bristol and, Snyder notes, one in Scarborough, unknown to town officials, that is not the Williamses. 

“There’s a multitude of reasons why people do this, but I would say the lion’s share of our demographic are empty nesters, where a couple is approaching middle age and they have a big house, a little free time and, typically, some background or interest in the arts,” said Snyder. “They end up going to one of these house concerts, often involving dinner with the artists, and find a kind of magic in it. Really, they go to one and they just absolutely fall in love with the idea.

“Meanwhile, we’re looking out for artists who are out there on the road and, for many of them, it’s extremely difficult for them to make a living,” said Snyder. “Without house concerts to supplement their income, there are of musicians who just could not afford to tour their music.”

Municipal action like that taken in Scarborough is “pretty rare,” said Snyder, pegging the number at “maybe one a year.”  When there is trouble, he said, it usually starts with a “cranky neighbor” more upset with parking than noise.

According to Scarborough’s code enforcement administrator, Dave Grysk, the shows at the Williams’ house drew no complaints, not even from the Aug. 13 show, featuring Georgia-based southern blues rockers the Brian Collins Band. Paul Williams went a bit beyond the average house concert host, actually building a stage into his 2,370-square-foot home.

That level of enthusiasm – perhaps beyond the “private party with a special guest” that Synder says describes most house concerts – led Williams to promote his willingness to host musicians elsewhere on the web, including on a Facebook page that has since been taken down. Eventually, the Brick House showed up on a website called ReverbNation, listing a venue capacity of 80 people.

“I have no idea where they got that from,” said Williams. “I didn’t give that number to anybody.”

According to Grysk, it was an inquiry into a new, 80-seat concert hall that was not believed to have gone before the Planning Board, and not a neighbor’s complaint, that alerted the town to the Williams operation.

“One of our inspectors, John Reed, went out and told them it couldn’t be there,” said Grysk. “He told them they had to pull all the advertising.”

Grysk acknowledges that parking would not be a problem for the Williamses, as their home sits far back from the road. Irrespective of whether home concerts rise to the level of a business, requiring the same licensing and inspection as the bars Williamses’ invitees hope to avoid, Grysk says the home is in the rural farming zoning district, where “assembly” is not allowed.

“Because they’re inviting a lot of people in, it couldn’t even be called a home occupation,” he said.

Town Manager Tom Hall said he understands that the Williamses may have happened upon a new cultural phenomena, new to Maine at least, which was not envisioned in Scarborough’s zoning ordinances. The Williamses are free, he said, to seek the zoning changes that would allow them to re-launch the Brick House.

“We don’t do these kind of things because we want to frustrate business,” he said. “Zoning rules generally exist to protect the health and safety of the public.”

For example, Hall questioned if the Williamses’ septic system is designed for the number of guests they have in mind, over the long term.

But Snyder says that’s overthinking the issue.

“I really want to reiterate that these are private, invitation-only events,” he said. “This is not a business activity. If the town is going to shut down this type of event, it might as well shut down all Tupperware parties and Pampered Chef parties and all political events because, ultimately, that’s the kind of activity we’re are talking about.”

Williams admitted he did not run his house concert concept past planning and zoning officials. He also say he doesn’t plan to.

“When that guy came out here and spoke to my wife, he kind of scared her a little bit,” he said. “She called me and said, that’s it, you’re done. So, it was a nice idea, but it’s all over, I guess.”