New York City officials have sued the Margaritaville Hotel in Times Square, seeking to collect more than $54,000 in unpaid noise tickets, despite a recent crackdown on controversial “noise vigilantes” who filed complaints.
The 234-room hotel at 560 Seventh Avenue has four restaurants and bars, including a rooftop tiki bar, but it has come under scrutiny from one of the city’s most frequent noise enforcement agencies for playing music too loudly.
Dietmar Detering, a Queens resident who makes a living by walking around the city and filing reports about noise wafting from outside bars and restaurants, filed 12 complaints against hotels in 2022 and 2023.
He has filed hundreds of similar complaints over the past few years and received a cut of the fines that businesses pay to the city.
But a new law that went into effect this year drastically reduced his share and eliminated his salary, even though one of his lawsuits is still pending with the city, according to information obtained by The Washington Post.
According to the June 11 lawsuit, the Jimmy Buffett-inspired hotel currently owes the city $54,741 in unpaid violations, an amount that has inflated because it has never appeared in court to defend itself.
The hotel, which has a rooftop pool, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I cannot work for free,” Deterling told The Post in an email. “I filed my final complaint on Nov. 28.”
The city passed a law last year to crack down on complainants seeking unfair advantage.
Previously, Detering and his colleagues could receive 25 to 50 percent of the fines they collected, plus fines of more than $1,000 for a third offense.
But under a new law that took effect in January after an outcry from the business community, fines will be significantly reduced to just $5 or $10 per citation, no matter how many complaints a company receives.
The companies claim they weren’t given an opportunity to correct the problems before receiving the subpoenas.
Mario Arcari, owner of the Mercury Bar in Hell’s Kitchen, told The Washington Post last year that he was cited seven times by Private Enforcement Officer Eric Eisenberg and fined more than $33,000, according to a complaint reviewed by The Washington Post.
“It was a shock,” Alkali told the Post. “We were never notified about the initial complaint and then this guy kept coming in every day and complaining without telling us anything.”
According to Detering, the new law is having a chilling effect.
“Four lawsuits have been filed since September 2023 by citizens other than myself,” he told The Post in an email. “As it stands, there is no reasonable deterrent to commercial noise.”
“Some people claimed to be concerned about noise, but the drop in these types of tickets shows they were really just trying to make a quick buck,” DEP Chairman Rohit T. Agarwala said, adding that complaints have stopped since the law went into effect.
Deterling believes that without him and several others who filed complaints, the companies would run wild and “terrorize new neighborhoods.”
Andrew Riggie, executive director of the New York Hospitality Alliance, a trade group that represents restaurants and hotels across the city, disagreed.
“Small businesses need to comply with sound regulations, but they should not be subject to expensive and unjustified bounty-hunting fines,” Riggie said.
Deterling’s account of one night in February 2023 is included in one of 12 complaints against the Margaritaville Hotel.
“I have personally observed this bar blasting music to patrons on the sidewalk from a single speaker located on the north side of the eaves of their establishment, near a wall and at the edge of their sign, in an attempt to draw attention to the establishment,” the subpoena stated, according to Crain’s New York Business.
