St. Armands Muzak just won't stop

In April, the St. Armands Business Improvement District made a painful decision: There would be no more tropical music playing around St. Armands Circle.

Those in attendance expressed regret that the music would have to come to an end, but said outside circumstances forced their hands.

Several of the speakers the BID purchased were no longer working. Some businesses in the Circle were amplifying their own music or advertisements, creating a cacophony the board wanted to avoid.

And so, with little joy, the group agreed it would silence the music. (Or, technically, Muzak — the BID was paying the company Mood Media for the brand-name background music.)

“It’s just terrible,” said Diana Corrigan, executive director of the St. Armands Circle Association, at the time. “I hate to see it disappear for the holidays. It was wonderful.”

Ten months later, though, St. Armands merchants and landowners are dealing with a strange problem. The music is still playing. They can’t get it to stop.

“It’s loud,” Corrigan said at the Feb. 14 BID meeting. “I’ve had businesses call complaining about it.”

The piped-in tunes around the Circle date back to 2003, when the BID struck a deal with Muzak — then an independent company — to play music during the day on 122 Bose speakers installed throughout the shopping district. The company and BID experimented with several genres before settling on the tropical-inspired music.

Over time, some of the speakers stopped working — as many as 60%, those present at February’s BID meeting speculated. Former BID Chairman Marty Rappaport said he reached out to Mood Media to discuss the problem.

He said Mood Media offered to replace the speakers or sign a maintenance agreement to repair the equipment for a fee, but Rappaport wasn’t in a position to commit funds without board approval.

Instead, he told the company to cut the music until the board decided otherwise. No matter what he said, it wouldn’t end the service.

“I have called them,” Rappaport said. “I have sent them notices. I have sent them emails.”

BID Chairman Gavin Meshad said the details of the contract the group signed with Mood Media might be complicating the process of stopping the music.

The BID was in the midst of a five-year agreement with the company, and Meshad said Mood Media could argue the BID was attempting to get out of that contract early. The group budgeted $2,000 annually toward the music service.

Despite any legal questions, Rappaport sees the situation as more straightforward.

“They were told to terminate it, and they never did,” Rappaport said.

In the meantime, the St. Armands BID and businesses around the Circle must grapple with the presence of music they don’t want anymore. BID Board Member Matt Rosinsky agreed to reach out to a representative for Mood Media to see if the situation could be sorted out.

Rappaport said the BID could reach out to attorney Sam Norton to settle any dispute, but the group expressed optimism they could find an easier way to bring an end to the tropical music.

“This is something silly,” BID board member Michael Valentino said.