The commission regrets that not all applications will be approved.
EAST ELMHURST, N.Y., August 18, 2026 — How New York’s Amplified Sound Reduction Commission came to be — and how one man came to wield complete control over the enterprise over several years — continues to stump legal analysts and casual observers alike. After improbable triumphs in court over the last several months, though, the ASRC has made one thing quite clear: it will accept no further delays as it begins the formidable task of regulating all amplified sound in the five boroughs.
The regulations for which the commission is responsible are simple enough. From the first of September, any amplified sound in the City of New York — be it from a car horn, karaoke machine, or Bluetooth speaker — must not be produced in any public place without a license. Applicants must pay a fee, complete a raft of paperwork, and appear in person before the ASRC in order to be considered.
Put in simpler terms, any person or business wishing to make noise in New York must first gain the favor of a special commission. The commission has complete authority to approve or deny applications, and critics have voiced concerns over a lack of accountability in the process.
At 3:30 a.m. on Tuesday, hundreds of hopeful sound amplification license applicants found themselves in the dingy conference room of a budget hotel next to LaGuardia Airport where the sign on the door read:
Amplified Sound Reduction Commission
Ian McKnight, Chairman
McKnight, a long-time proponent of total silence, was keen to deter any applications at all. He explained in an earlier interview that he wished to hold the meeting in “the most inaccessible and unpleasant place I can imagine.” This did not stop scores of horn-honkers, bar and restaurant owners, amateur singers, and noise lovers of all stripes from attending.
The front of the room was arranged with a table, a chair, and a stack of paper applications. The single commissioner and self-designated chairman appeared exactly at the appointed hour, wearing a bowtie and flanked by several bodyguards.
This is not the first time that Mr. McKnight has appeared with bodyguards. His distaste for city noise, unorthodox commission leadership, and unapologetic media presence have made him one of the most controversial public figures in New York.
His detractors have criticized him loudly (how else?) and have drawn comparisons to Oliver Cromwell and to Robert Moses, who ruled over New York’s politics with an iron fist for decades without ever having been elected to any office.
“It makes me sick that he thinks he can come here from Missouri or Minnesota or whatever and take away my freedom. He’s destroying my city,” said one woman who had made the trip from Staten Island and was hoping to get a license for the custom sound system she had strapped to her motorcycle.
Several applicants hurled insults at McKnight as he took his seat, but the room quickly fell silent as he began to speak. There was no microphone, and those in the back of the room strained to hear him over the sounds of the air conditioning.
“The commission regrets that not all applications will be approved this morning,” said the commission’s only member who, if he did truly feel regret, showed no other outward signs of it.
The great ceremony began as the chairman plucked the first application from the top of the stack. When the applicant was not present (or could not hear her name called over the nervous din), the chairman produced a large rubber stamp and denied the application with an expression of something approaching glee.
A karaoke bar in Bushwick was next and McKnight, suggesting that the patrons join a choir instead, denied the application, setting a precedent for every other karaoke establishment that was to come.
It took the review of 34 applications before one was approved, and that was only after the applicant — an Uber driver from the South Bronx who wanted to keep his car stereo — correctly named the FM wavelengths of four different public radio stations when quizzed.
To several applicants, the lone commissioner offered personal advice. “I know from experience that your patrons would really be much happier if they could hear one another speak,” he remarked to one denied applicant, the owner of a West Village beer hall. To representatives of both the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic, he suggested that “renewal time will be a great deal easier if you cool it with the experimental stuff.”
By noon, the pattern was becoming clearer. Most applications were denied. It was a grim morning for those who wished to take portable speakers on the subway or play the radio on their motorcycles. Grocery stores with pop music playlists interspersed with advertisements were uniformly dismissed.
The city’s jazz clubs seemed to have slid through the process unscathed. Most other restaurants and bars, it seems, will no longer have music indoors or out come September. Individuals with speakers were met with almost universal denial, except for those whose musical tastes seemed to align with those of Mr. McKnight.
Around 1 p.m., a sports bar in Midtown Manhattan's ability to play the proceedings of football games on speakers facing the street was under consideration. The owner of the bar was obviously agitated from eight hours of waiting and the commissioner, having just eaten a bodega grilled cheese delivered by an aide, seemed as emboldened as ever.
When McKnight swiftly denied the application, the sports bar owner rose from his seat in indignation and charged at the podium, slipping easily through the bodyguards and attacking McKnight as the room erupted with cheers.
It took twenty minutes for an ambulance to arrive and cart the bloodied chairman away, likely owing to the fact that sirens were removed from emergency vehicles in Queens last month as part of an ASRC pilot program. The pilot was spearheaded by McKnight himself who, at the time, called the devices “dreadful creators of unnecessary racket.”
“I still think it was a good idea,” McKnight insisted as he was wheeled out of the airport budget hotel conference room lying on a gurney. “I stand by it.”
Distractions
Things I have been reading, watching, and listening to this week.
“How the Pandemic Now Ends” by Ed Yong in the Atlantic.
“America has fallen prey to many of the same self-destructive but alluring instincts that I identified last year. It went all in on one countermeasure—vaccines—and traded it off against masks and other protective measures. It succumbed to magical thinking by acting as if a variant that had ravaged India would spare a country where half the population still hadn’t been vaccinated. It stumbled into the normality trap, craving a return to the carefree days of 2019; in May, after the CDC ended indoor masking for vaccinated people, President Joe Biden gave a speech that felt like a declaration of victory. Three months later, cases and hospitalizations are rising, indoor masking is back, and schools and universities are opening uneasily—again.”
30 Rock is back on Netflix!
30 Rock is the best television ever made. This is an undeniable fact. There is no program with such a great density of comedy. Very simply, nothing else compares. Finally, after a period of great darkness and sorrow when it was removed from Netflix, 30 Rock is back. After years of suffering through inferior televisions, watching this feels like coming home.