by Steve Miller

CBS Chicago

August 21, 2014

Noise from a spin studio in Evanston has some people upset – claiming their complaints have fallen on deaf ears, reports WBBM’s Steve Miller.

It was a little shop where Martha Moser taught people how to sew.

“Education, especially sewing education, is quiet,” Moser said.

And then almost two years after Moser opened her shop, the spin studio opened up next door on Sherman near Main Street in Evanston.

“Absolute opposite atmosphere for a sewing studio,” she said. “This is screaming and loud music. Amplified shouting, I think, is what one person described it as.”

Moser says the noise at Jason Bressler’s Revolution X spin studio drove people away from her sewing studio.

“I just feel he took away my livelihood with all his noise,” she said.

After Moser’s business folded – and Bressler took over her space – some neighbors took up her cause and demanded Bressler soundproof the windows.

“I’m literally doing everything that I can, but if I soundproof the windows, I will legitimately kill our clients. The heat that will be generated in such a small space – there’s no way that air conditioners could keep up with it,” Bressler said.

Peggy Tarr lives across the street. She says the noise is even bad over there, even though a tape recorder didn’t pick up too much of it when WBBM visited.

“I’m a writer and a painter, and this really jars me,” Tarr said.

For the past two years, both Bressler and Tarr and some of Tarr’s supporters have appeared before the city council. There have been police reports, and both have lawyered up.

“I clearly don’t make too much noise,” Bressler said.