He’s making a racket with this noise complaint.
A retiree enraged by clamorous cafes and rambunctious restaurants has started a petition to have Big Apple eateries publicly post their decibel levels so those looking for quiet can make informed decisions about where to dine.
“Good food and bad conversation is a lousy meal,” Howard Davis, 87, told The Post, saying he’s sick of struggling to hear his dinner dates above the din.
“It’s practically impossible to go to a restaurant where the noise is not overwhelming,” the retired attorney, who lives on the Upper East Side and dines out up to four nights a week, further proclaimed.
Among the list of Davis’ noisiest offenders: Becco and the Smith, both in Midtown, and Sojourn and Blue Mezze, both on the Upper East Side.
More than 230 people have added their signatures to the petition, which was posted to Change.org late last year.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to know how loud a restaurant is before you decide if you want to eat there, especially since loud noise can cause hearing loss?” Davis declared, petitioning Hospitality Industry Associations to have an “expert” measure the decibel level of each eatery.
Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations warn of permanent hearing damage at decibel levels above 70.
Some noisy NYC restaurants roar above 90 decibels — the sound equivalent of a motorcycle zooming right past your ears.
Diners are divided over the proposal, with some saying a noisy restaurant only adds to the Big Apple’s appealingly frenetic hustle and bustle.
“Stay home if you hate noise,” advertising account director Frances Hughes, 29, bluntly told The Post. “The city’s dining scene is so much fun and so vibrant.”
Former NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg agrees, implying that the hubbub shows the city has roared back to life after the crippling COVID pandemic.
“I was just at a restaurant last night. You couldn’t hear, the noise was so loud,” he excitedly said of Uptown hot spot Elio’s in September 2023.
Hughes, who lives in Williamsburg and dines out often, worries that the public posting of an eatery’s decibel level would adversely affect rowdier restaurants, with owners potentially fearing “backlash for being too loud.”
“It would be a shame for some of the vibier places to feel like they need to tone it down to not feature too highly on a decibel level list,” she said.
However, other patrons are peeved by the racket.
The Post’s own Steve Cuozzo has repeatedly railed against the “ear-splitting hell” of New York eateries, saying the sound situation is seemingly getting worse.
“We’ve always had noisy restaurants … but now it’s hard to find any place that doesn’t take a bite out of your ears’ sensory receptors,” he wrote in 2018. “Fearful their places will lack buzz without a racket, restaurateurs seem to be increasingly cultivating cacophony. “
In 2023, Cuozzo complained that “cacophony reigns at many restaurants,” naming Tatiana, Le Rock, Bad Roman, Sartiano’s and Cafe Chelsea among the noisy hot spots.
NYC Hospitality Alliance’s Andrew Rigie described the decibel proposal as an “overly complicated anti-small business mandate” in a statement provided to PIX11.
Huges, who loves loud restaurants, similarly believes it’s red tape.
“I feel for older people or people with concerns about noise — but it’s New York,” Hughes stated. “There are many places on the quieter end of the scale and communities sharing knowledge of these places with each other is a better solve than adding more red tape and headaches for restaurants.”
However, Davis, who is making some serious noise about his decibel petition to ensure it gets heard, insists he’s not trying to make eateries alter their atmospheres. Instead, he simply wants diners to be made aware of what they’re in for.
“If someone wants to go to a loud restaurant, that’s their call,” he said. “If the owner wants to keep a loud restaurant, that’s their call. We’re not asking anyone to change anything.”
Davis insists he’s had an “overwhelming” positive response to the petition, even from young people.
“It’s not that they like the noise, it’s just that they tolerate it,” he told The Post of young diners. “I’ve never met anyone who goes into a restaurant and asks the manager to make it louder.”
With the petition still circulating, diners are finding other inventive ways to avoid loud restaurants.
SoundPrint, a self-described “Yelp for noise,” tallies decibel levels at 3,000 New York City eateries above 75 decibels.
In 2023, SoundPrint — which can be downloaded onto your smartphone — found that 63% of restaurants are too loud for a conversation.
