Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Ramona musicians seek solution for outdoor playing at wineries
Ambient artists aren’t trying to put AC/DC in anyone’s backyard
Norton says that beautiful outdoor spaces are “where people want to be drinking wine and listening to music.”
Most neighborhood conflicts over live music involve loud bands that drive the neighbors nuts. But an unusual battle has been brewing in Ramona for over a year now, one involving musicians who most often perform solo or as a duo while providing ambient music for patrons at local wineries. “We started getting the wineries here about 15 years ago,” says Jon Hasz of The Beard and the Bird. “There were a handful of wineries in town, but nothing really big. Then they fought and got this zoning ordinance passed in Ramona so that more wineries could open, and that kicked open the floodgates. A bunch opened up, and with that came the expectation of relaxing music while you’re drinking wine. That’s really when that solo songwriter [and] duo thing kicked in, and it has grown every year since.”
But while the wineries on Ramona’s Main Street are safely in a commercial zone, more rural wineries — the ones that exist on land zoned for agricultural use — are in a bind. “The places want to do it, but it sounds like their zoning doesn’t allow them to do it,” Hasz explains. “So we’re basically rallying the troops to get specific guidelines [drafted into zoning laws] so that music is allowed, but they are tailored down so they aren’t ending up with big block parties and loud craziness. We are trying to be really precise about what kind of scene we are trying to save and create.”
The Ramona live music community was recently cut a break when the county gave them official notice stating that the wineries could host indoor live music. Unfortunately, amplified outdoor live music is still off-limits until a study is completed. (Word is, that will be sometime in 2025.) And outdoor is pretty much the only option for the rural outfits. “They’re not allowed to have really big tasting rooms, so they kind of can’t really do music indoors,” says Ashley E. Norton. “Most of them have these tiny tasting rooms indoors and these beautiful outdoor spaces. That’s where people want to be drinking wine and listening to music.”
Norton moved to Ramona four years ago, and often played the wineries before those businesses started receiving cease-and-desist notices. She reckons she played at various wineries at least twice a week before the conflict started, and that now, her gigs at those venues have dropped by more than 50 percent. “It’s definitely a good amount of money from my income that dropped off,” she says. “But it’s not even about that. It’s about the community, specifically in Ramona. We have had this beautiful, flourishing music scene in the last four years that kind of came out of Covid. Everybody was just so tired of being cooped up, and then, when they found they could go out and listen to live music, everyone came together and was happy and singing and dancing. Then it was, like, ‘Oh wait, you can’t do that.’ It was kind of frustrating for everybody after that. There’s definitely lots of other music venues and places that people can perform music in Ramona, but the wineries were a big part of that.”
Norton does have sympathy for the residents of Ramona who moved there for peace and quiet. “The problem is that, in our valleys, music travels differently,” she says. “So, what you’re hearing may not be your neighbor. It could be completely across the valley, and there’s kind of nothing you can do about that. A lot of times, I think that things are directed at wineries. But I’m like, ‘I think you’re hearing the neighbor ten miles away that is playing their radio at night.’” She feels that a set decibel level that is enforced for live music at the boutique wineries could resolve the situation.
Hasz says that locals have been meeting and brainstorming about the right terms and correct wording for new rules that would ensure “that people who are worried about loud stuff are taken care of.” He adds that everyone in the local Ramona Music Alliance, together with most of the local business owners, are supportive of a solution that would allow these small-scale, outdoor performances to resume without the looming threat of fines or penalties. “Most of the nays that I have heard of have just been complaints about very loud big bands,” he says, “and I don’t think people understand that we are talking about this specific carve-out. They just have some vision of AC/DC ending up in their backyard.”
Here's something you might be interested in.
Ramona musicians seek solution for outdoor playing at wineries
Ambient artists aren’t trying to put AC/DC in anyone’s backyard
Ramona musicians seek solution for outdoor playing at wineries
Ambient artists aren’t trying to put AC/DC in anyone’s backyard
Norton says that beautiful outdoor spaces are “where people want to be drinking wine and listening to music.”
Most neighborhood conflicts over live music involve loud bands that drive the neighbors nuts. But an unusual battle has been brewing in Ramona for over a year now, one involving musicians who most often perform solo or as a duo while providing ambient music for patrons at local wineries. “We started getting the wineries here about 15 years ago,” says Jon Hasz of The Beard and the Bird. “There were a handful of wineries in town, but nothing really big. Then they fought and got this zoning ordinance passed in Ramona so that more wineries could open, and that kicked open the floodgates. A bunch opened up, and with that came the expectation of relaxing music while you’re drinking wine. That’s really when that solo songwriter [and] duo thing kicked in, and it has grown every year since.”
But while the wineries on Ramona’s Main Street are safely in a commercial zone, more rural wineries — the ones that exist on land zoned for agricultural use — are in a bind. “The places want to do it, but it sounds like their zoning doesn’t allow them to do it,” Hasz explains. “So we’re basically rallying the troops to get specific guidelines [drafted into zoning laws] so that music is allowed, but they are tailored down so they aren’t ending up with big block parties and loud craziness. We are trying to be really precise about what kind of scene we are trying to save and create.”
The Ramona live music community was recently cut a break when the county gave them official notice stating that the wineries could host indoor live music. Unfortunately, amplified outdoor live music is still off-limits until a study is completed. (Word is, that will be sometime in 2025.) And outdoor is pretty much the only option for the rural outfits. “They’re not allowed to have really big tasting rooms, so they kind of can’t really do music indoors,” says Ashley E. Norton. “Most of them have these tiny tasting rooms indoors and these beautiful outdoor spaces. That’s where people want to be drinking wine and listening to music.”
Norton moved to Ramona four years ago, and often played the wineries before those businesses started receiving cease-and-desist notices. She reckons she played at various wineries at least twice a week before the conflict started, and that now, her gigs at those venues have dropped by more than 50 percent. “It’s definitely a good amount of money from my income that dropped off,” she says. “But it’s not even about that. It’s about the community, specifically in Ramona. We have had this beautiful, flourishing music scene in the last four years that kind of came out of Covid. Everybody was just so tired of being cooped up, and then, when they found they could go out and listen to live music, everyone came together and was happy and singing and dancing. Then it was, like, ‘Oh wait, you can’t do that.’ It was kind of frustrating for everybody after that. There’s definitely lots of other music venues and places that people can perform music in Ramona, but the wineries were a big part of that.”
Norton does have sympathy for the residents of Ramona who moved there for peace and quiet. “The problem is that, in our valleys, music travels differently,” she says. “So, what you’re hearing may not be your neighbor. It could be completely across the valley, and there’s kind of nothing you can do about that. A lot of times, I think that things are directed at wineries. But I’m like, ‘I think you’re hearing the neighbor ten miles away that is playing their radio at night.’” She feels that a set decibel level that is enforced for live music at the boutique wineries could resolve the situation.
Hasz says that locals have been meeting and brainstorming about the right terms and correct wording for new rules that would ensure “that people who are worried about loud stuff are taken care of.” He adds that everyone in the local Ramona Music Alliance, together with most of the local business owners, are supportive of a solution that would allow these small-scale, outdoor performances to resume without the looming threat of fines or penalties. “Most of the nays that I have heard of have just been complaints about very loud big bands,” he says, “and I don’t think people understand that we are talking about this specific carve-out. They just have some vision of AC/DC ending up in their backyard.”
Comments