ASDA chain goes quiet to help autism sufferers

All ASDA supermarkets turned off their muzac and reduced other acoustic and visual disturbances to a minimum for an hour last Tuesday to allow people with autism to shop in peace. This is a real advance: a major chain at last recognising the impact excessive noise can have on its customers. ASDA needs to expand the scheme to having well-advertised quiet hours every day of the year, however. Autism sufferers are of course especially vulnerable but they are not the only shoppers harmed by piped music. The 15% of the population with hearing problems are also badly affected, as are people with many other problems, from hyperacusis and tinnitus to ME. It is high time supermarkets woke up to this problem.

Email ASDA’s  CEO  Roger Burnley  roger.burnley@asda.co.uk,to press him to extend the scheme and make it a permanent feature of the chain, not a one-off. sean.clarke@asda.co.uk

 

Meanwhile, keep protesting to the Co-op which is finally showing signs of listening to its customers. Email the Co-op’s CEO Steve Murrells, perhaps also pointing out how well Aldi and Lidl are doing without any music. steve.murrells@coop.co.uk

Restaurants deafen diners with music, GFG warns

The Good Food Guide 2018  once more includes information  about whether or not the place reviewed has music (though it does not specify what sort of music).

The GFG now reports that more and more establishments are alienating their customers by deafening them with ‘Glastonbury-force’ piped music.

This year’s guide, just published , warns of an ‘unprecedented trend for noisy restaurants, which is leading to a spike in complaints from sensitive eared customers….Restaurants are getting noisier – that’s what our readers, this year in unprecedented numbers, are telling us. Noise levels, already amplified by bare-bones design, are being raised by music played at Glastonbury force. Everyone loves a restaurant that has a buzzing, vibrant atmosphere, but it becomes exhausting and self-defeating when, as one old hand told us: ‘I have never heard such loudly amplified music in an eating place. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear a word the waitress was saying, and vice versa. We had to gesture and point.”

The recent very common trend for minimalist bare walls and floors, ‘not just in hipster places’, is also changing the acoustics in restaurants and making it difficult for people to hear each other.

Pipedown in collaboration with Action on Hearing Loss (aka RNID), is planning a fresh campaign to make restaurateurs far more aware of this problem.
 AHL has recently (20th September) relaunched its Speak Easy Campaign, encouraging diners to record noise levels with an app that can be downloaded onto a mobile.

Noise second only to air pollution as a cause of death, a new survey from New York shows

A new survey from New York  reveals the effects on human health of noise of all sorts. Noise is now second only to air pollution in its adverse effects on human health. Hypertension and cancer are two  of the potentially fatal illnesses that excessive, non-stop music – which triggers a fight-or-flight response – can cause. And, as the report in Harpers Bazaar magazine points out, you can no longer hope to find a refuge in bars, hotels, restaurants or even bookshops, as almost all are filled with piped music!

‘Loud noise correlated with high-stress events that could damage tissue: thunder, animal roars, screams, or war cries,’ says Bart Kosko, Ph.D., a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Southern California and the author of Noise. So, in response to rare but loud threats, we evolved to spurt out adrenalin, cortisol, and other stress hormones—chemicals that jacked up our bodies so we could fight or flee. A constant gush of stress hormones actually restructures the brain, contributing to tumor development, heart disease, respiratory disorders, and more. And of course, our hormonal endocrine systems haven’t had time to learn that car stereos aren’t out to get us. ‘Today we regularly get similar stress-hormone surges from car alarms, ringing phones, police sirens, leaf blowers, jackhammers, and amplified voices.’

The problem is of course global and not confined to the USA.

http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a10295155/noise-detox/

 

Ann Arbor launches 1st Pipedown USA

People living in the USA have long complained about the problems caused by piped music there. Now the Ann Arbor, Michigan group has relaunched itself with a sparkling new website  http://quietannarbor.org

Although their intention is to focus on local problems first – understandably, the US being a big place – they are very happy to exchange contacts and ideas with Americans from other states. So do contact them quietannarbor@gmail.com

Disability: suitable grounds for action?

The number of people with a disability that can be worsened or  triggered by loud piped music is large and growing. The category includes people suffering from autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, tinnitus, presbycusis, hyperacusis, ME and misophonia as well as general difficulty in hearing. Added together they make up at least 20% of the population. Up  to now this sizeable minority has been mostly ignored not only by supermarkets and other retailers but also – far more disgracefully – by those running hospitals, health centres, gyms and public swimming pools. This is despite the requirement to consider the needs of people with such conditions under the Disability Act of 1995 and the Equality Act of 2010.

There are signs that the commercial sector at least is beginning to wake up the problem. Some have been trialling quiet hours and/or quiet days, or even thinking of dropping piped music altogether. (See previous posts.)   If you or people you know suffer from any of these, problems, when protesting do mention it, and also the two Acts. Stress that by playing inescapable loud music throughout their premises shops, gyms etc are excluding large groups of people. If it is unacceptable to exclude people on grounds of colour, sexuality, gender, race or religion from public places, it is equally unacceptable, and against the law, to exclude people because of their disabilities mentioned above.  

 

 

 

 

 

Post comments on the presence/absence of piped music on Booking.com etc

As the holiday season gets going, people planning a trip start looking at sites such as Tripadvisor www.tripadvisor.co.uk, Booking.com  www.booking.com and Expedia  https://www.expedia.co.uk

If you visit a hotel/restaurant/bar and comment online about it, don’t forget to add whether or not the place concerned has piped music. Do so very prominently. If enough comments – intelligent, polite but pointed comments –  are posted about piped music, hoteliers and restaurateurs should start to take note.  (Some people object to the potential misuse of these sites. Certain comments may be prejudiced, some may be malicious and even orchestrated, but overall they  can still help the prospective traveller – and also the hotelier/restaurateur concerned.)

LIDL PROMISES TO REMAIN MUZAC-FREE – AND WATERSTONES RETURNS TO PROFIT AFTER DROPPING ITS MUSIC

Lidl, the famously discounted supermarket chain, has experimented with piped music in a few branches recently. Finding that it was not proving popular, they have stopped it and promised to keep their branches muzac-free in future. Their sage decision was encouraged by the many letters of protest they received from Pipedowners. And their sales and profits continue to grow – the latter by 9.4%. Proof that giving up piped music can boost profits and that protests can influence shops!

Meanwhile Waterstones, the chain of bookshops, has returned to profit, making £9.8m profit in the year to April 2016 compared to a loss of £4.5m the previous year. Waterstones has been quietly but steadily phasing out piped music from its branches. Yet further proof that giving up piped music helps boost profits!

Moral: protest can and does work!

The Good Pub Guide calls for a ban on piped music in pubs.

The Good Pub Guide, long the definitive guide to pubs up and down the UK, is calling for a ban on piped music in pubs in its new 2017 edition. It declares that  ‘piped music, canned music, muzak, lift music, airport music – call it what you will, it’s there and our readers loathe it in any shape or form. It enlists bitter complaints from our readers and has done so ever since we started the Guide 35 years ago. It’s such an issue that we have always asked every main entry pub since 1983 whether or not they have it, and then clearly state this in each review.’

This seasonal good news should encourage all pubs to consider removing piped music if they currently have it. And it should encourage pub-goers to buy the latest edition of the guide. This has always been excellent. Now it is more useful than ever.