PROMENADE’S JAZZ STOPPED BY LOUDNESS

After just three shows, the 14-week “Jazz at the Promenade” series of Sunday afternoon concerts has been canceled because of noise complaints.

San Diego noise-abatement officer Frank Hafner denied the promoter’s application for a variance from the city’s noise ordinance June 8 after he received numerous complaints from neighbors.

Hafner’s decision prohibits any further concerts from being staged on the Pacific Beach shopping center’s upper deck.

“I spent a Sunday out there, and I could hear the music at people’s homes two blocks away,” Hafner said. “I met with at least 40 residents, and all were displeased about the music.

“The problem is that the concert site is way up in the air, out in the open. So even at a reasonable volume, the sound gets picked up by the wind and is blown east, toward the homes.”

Maureen Gibbons of Trammell Crow & Co., the Promenade’s property manager and the series’ producer, said her firm plans to appeal Hafner’s decision, “but by the time the appeal is heard, I wonder what stage of summer we’ll be in.”

“I’m just sick about this,” she said. “This is all very, very discouraging.”

The concert series, which began May 24, was intended to help boost business at the Promenade, which has a vacancy rate of nearly 50%.

Bookings focused on national jazz upstarts as well as local nightclub favorites. The lineup was coordinated by veteran jazz promoter Rob Hagey, founder of the San Diego Jazz Festival.