Seattle neighbors angry, exhausted by Paris Hilton's late-night DJ set
Published in Entertainment News
SEATTLE — Ken Odem, 36, and his partner sought peace of mind last month when they moved into their 40th-floor apartment in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood, eager to enjoy the building’s spa, wellness center and general sense of calm.
Instead, Odem said, they “ended up across the street from chaos.”
Seattle police did not shut down a penthouse party featuring a performance by celebrity DJ Paris Hilton on Thursday night that Odem said rattled apartments up to a mile away and kept neighbors awake with blasting bass and strobe lights. Social media users said they heard sounds from the party from Queen Anne.
“It’s unacceptable that Seattle police did not respond at all, and that someone could be so disrespectful to their community, their neighbors, the tenants in the building,” Odem said Friday, after a few hours of sleep. “Nobody acted, and as a result, thousands of people in this area suffered.”
Detective Eric Munoz, a Seattle Police Department spokesperson, said the department did not receive any 911 calls Thursday night or Friday morning mentioning the address of Onni, the luxury apartment building on Denny Way and Boren Avenue where the party took place.
Representatives for Onni’s Seattle office and South Lake Union property did not respond Friday to multiple phone and written inquiries. A representative for one of Hilton’s companies also did not respond to an inquiry.
The party appeared to be hosted by Levy Aesthetics, a cosmetic dermatology clinic with a Bellevue location that offers treatments like filler and Botox. Videos posted on the company’s Instagram showed people inside what appeared to be an apartment, cheering as Hilton performed or posing with the former reality TV star.
Representatives of Levy Aesthetics did not respond to phone and written inquiries on Friday.
Odem said he and his partner were watching TV inside their apartment around 9 p.m. when they first felt vibrations from the muffled music. He thought it was his upstairs neighbors until about an hour later, when he looked out his window and saw a drone circling Onni’s rooftop across the street.
He opened the window and sounds of top 40 music rocketed into his apartment. The noise appeared to be coming from an Onni penthouse that was pulsating with multicolored strobe lights.
Odem said he called the Police Department’s nonemergency line at 11 p.m. to report the noise, and a dispatcher told him they were “very aware of the issues at Onni” and were sending officers there. He said he called 911 at midnight, saying the noise had only grown louder and was violating the city’s noise ordinance.
According to Seattle municipal code, it’s unlawful for people to knowingly make unreasonable noise" with instruments or amplified sound that disturbs others, or to refuse a police officer's order to stop. It's also unlawful for residential property owners to allow their properties to be used for gatherings between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. where noise can be heard from 75 feet away or more, the ordinance states.
Munoz said officers evaluate noise complaints on a case-by-case basis, and have to focus on “priority of life” calls over nonemergencies. On Thursday night, officers citywide were responding to a shooting in South Seattle that injured a 41-year-old man, he said.
The department does not have equipment to measure decibel levels, so “there’s no great way for officers to enforce” the city’s noise ordinance, Munoz said. But officers responding to noise complaints typically try to help the people involved reach an “amicable solution.”
With no signs of Seattle police, Odem decided to do something himself.
He walked across the street shortly after midnight to ask someone at Onni to shut down the music. Three security guards, none of whom appeared to work for Onni, were standing outside the front door and told him they had already told the event organizers to lower the volume. One guard told Odem the owners of Onni’s South Lake Union building were flying down from Vancouver, B.C., to “address this issue,” he said.
Odem went home and called 911 again, he said, with no result. The sounds of blaring music eventually petered out around 1:30 a.m., but Odem said he stayed awake for another several hours out of sheer frustration.
He hopes Seattle police “hold the building accountable” by citing Onni for allegedly violating the city’s noise ordinance. But most of all, he hopes a similar party doesn’t happen again. And if it does, that Seattle police respond after neighbors complain.
Odem said he did not care who it was. "It’s late. I have to work," he said. "It’s not even a weekend. It’s just very disrespectful, and honestly unbelievable how inconsiderate these people are.
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