The 9ja Villa bar and lounge is giving Old Mill Basin residents a headache — literally.
From midnight to 5 am, the club on Avenue N plays music so loud that it wakes people up, said East 51st Street resident John Vasquez.
“They get going at midnight and they’re blasting music all night long,” he said. “I live across the street and hear it from my house. I’ve lived at this house for 32 years and never had this much trouble in my life.”
“It’s a horror,” agreed his wife, Pat.
The club is noisiest on Friday and Saturday nights when it’s rented out for private parties, explained Lieutenant Robert Haley of the 63rd Precinct.
Last weekend, Haley shut down a party at 3 am after the DJ repeatedly refused to turn down the music.
“You can play it as loud as you want inside the club but you can’t play it as loud outside of the club. It can’t be over 85 decibels, which is typically as loud as a subway car is,” Haley said. “They don’t realize that the neighbors are trying to get some sleep at two in the morning.”
Villa’s owner, Carol Emerenini, and manager, Paul Illo, recently met with neighborhood residents and police officers to address residents’ concerns.
“We have soundproofing on the windows and doors,” Illo said.
But cops believe more work is needed.
“Right now, they only have a thin plexiglass in the windowpanes. They need to maybe put a double set as well as a second door on the inside of the entrance,” Haley said.
Illo insisted that Villa is “trying to be considerate” and willing to install new and heavier doors.
“We are intending to do that soon,” he said. “And we are keeping the music very, very low. The music is not that loud.”
That’s not true, said Mill Basin Civic Association President Paul Curiale.
“Music is blaring at all hours,” he said. “This is not a community-minded business.”
If Villa is serious about installing additional soundproofing measures, the work will take time, Haley noted.
“The stuff is costly and it’s not done overnight,” he said.
