It’s a Thursday night in Las Vegas’ Arts District, and I’ve come out to meet Taverna Costera owner Jeff Hwang to discuss his concerns over a change in city law that he and other business owners in the area believe will handicap the flourishing live music and entertainment scene they’ve spent years building.

He greets me as his team prepares to host a hip-hop open mic on its rooftop stage. We hoof it half a block north to find employees at the newly opened Audio Bar gearing up for their own bass-heavy EDM event. 

“We’re starting to see things on our side of the street now,” Hwang explains, adding that other new neighbors, like Nocturno and Philly Freeze Me, have helped extend the Arts District’s expansive growth to a previously forgotten stretch that lies north of Charleston Boulevard. 

Hwang wants the trend to continue, but now fears it could be stomped out before it can really take flight. On June 26, he and other nearby businesses received a letter from the City of Las Vegas requesting feedback on a new proposal that would lift the Arts District’s existing exemption from the city’s standard noise ordinance, which generally requires loud gatherings to cease from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m. Under the current longstanding exemption, Arts District businesses can legally run shows until midnight on Thursdays and until 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

The city inquiry asked for any businesses “likely to be affected by a proposal” or any interested party to “submit comments, data or arguments” showing that the proposed changes would“impose a direct and significant economic burden upon a business” or “directly restrict the formation, operation, or expansion of a business.”

Taverna Costera Photo by: Wade Vandervort

“Until then, everyone who had live entertainment knew absolutely nothing, because there’s nobody in the Arts District saying we needed this,” Hwang says.

He proceeded to pen a public letter on July 1, writing that the plan would cause closures, job loss and “completely sterilize” the district. He was backed by co-signers from peer businesses like 18Bin, Audio Bar, Berlin, Hola Habibi, Jammyland, Ninja Karaoke and Swan Dive.

“From there, we needed to figure out what we’re up against and who’s behind this. The obvious answer was that it’s one of these three condo projects that are coming up,” Hwang says, referring to the construction of the 3rd Street Assemblage, the Flats Arts District and the Midtown mixed-use development. 

Midtown—which broke ground in April and is expected to add 3,000 residential units plus shops and other amenities across multiple buildings—is by far the largest. Hwang takes me up north of Coolidge Avenue, where the English Hotel sits adjacent to the Midtown site.

Both properties are owned by the Z Life Company, a development firm co-founded by Weina Zhang and Anna Olin. Hwang says his group is confident the duo was behind the push to kill the noise ordinance exemption. 

In a July 10 phone call, Zhang referred the Weekly to a recently aired 8 News Now interview with Olin, who said it’s reasonable to “modify” the longstanding noise ordinance exemption to “adapt it to what the new use is going to be.”

Midtown also shared its own July 1 open letter in which the developer confirmed that it expressed “concern” about “specific late-night noise disruptions,” but also maintained that the proposal came through a “city-led effort.” 

Ward 3 City Councilwoman Olivia Diaz—tied to the proposal because the Arts District is in her ward—was unavailable for comment last week. City spokesman Jace Radke confirmed the matter is “not on an upcoming city council agenda or up for a vote currently.”

“The city has received concerns from some businesses in the Arts District about amplified outdoor sound levels and the hours that it is allowed,” Radke said in an email. “In response to the concerns raised, the city’s Community Development team reached out to the businesses in the Arts District ... to get feedback on if the ordinance should be amended to remove the exemption from the city’s noise chapter for certain events within the district.”

If the noise policy were to change, he added that it wouldn’t apply to city-designated “special events” like First Friday, which are already exempt. 

After news of a potential policy change broke on social media, community members and influencers like Nothing To Do LV have taken to social media to urge followers to submit public comment on the city’s website. While business owners have until 5 p.m. on July 31 to weigh in themselves, members of Hwang’s coalition have already made up their minds.

“They have their answer, and I don’t think it’s something that they’re going to want to push,” Hwang says before we greet other owners on our tour. 

One of them, Danielle Crouch of Jammyland—a “reggae kitchen” with cocktails and live music—says she and fellow co-owner Allan Katz signed on to prevent a “domino effect” that could devastate the burgeoning scene. 

“It feels speculative and like something that would be a blanket on the neighborhood, when, if there are issues, they can be addressed on a case-by-case basis,” Crouch says.

One block east, over at the Hispanic and Middle Eastern-fusion cocktail and hookah bar Hola Habibi, owner Jose Borquez says the proposal would make it harder for him to serve Vegas’ massive service industry sector, which makes up the bulk of his late-night clientele. He likens the push to “gentrification.”

“Bigger companies are coming in and taking advantage of the space we’ve built. Some, like Houston Hot Chicken and Wolfgang Puck, are good partners. [Puck] very politely named his space after the address, because he’s not coming in trying to bully anybody. He’s trying to be a part of it, versus the Midtown group that’s trying to use their financial influence,” Borquez says.

Hwang, Crouch and Borquez all say they believe most who choose to move to the district do so understanding the vibrant—and occasionally loud—cultural scene there.

“The value of the condos that are going up is directly related to the vibrancy of the neighborhood,” Crouch says. “There are thousands of other neighborhoods here that are quiet, and if they wanted to live in Summerlin on the edge of Red Rock, they could.”

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