Downtown SLO used to be hopping with live music. The Dark Room, Brubeck’s, Club 781, SLO Brew, DK’s West Indies Bar, Mother’s Tavern, Tortilla Flats, The Dwelling—live music was everywhere. Now, not so much.
Sure, Frog and Peach still has some live shows. The Fremont Theater has events, but it’s a concert hall, not a night club.
And then there’s The Libertine Brewing Company, located at the corner of Broad and Pacific Streets right on the edge of downtown. The club is a shining light in an otherwise dim downtown live music scene, and it was at risk of being snuffed out by two new neighbors whose home is nearby.
Husbands Tom Barnard and Chris Baisa moved into their home less than two years ago and started complaining. They said the club did nothing to assuage the noise issue, and after spending approximately $70,000 soundproofing their home (new windows, doors, insulation), they can still hear music.
The club changed the position of its stage, so speakers pointed back into the club and away from the complaining parties, and completed other soundproofing, but the complaints continued. Police issued a $350 noise violation, later retracted. Then, the city scheduled an administrative hearing to review Libertine’s use permit. These two squeaky wheels were getting grease, but Libertine’s patrons were not too happy about potentially losing their special spot and came out in droves to support the venue.
Honestly, I feel Barnard and Baisa’s pain. It sucks to have loud neighbors, and it’s unfortunate they’ve invested so much money in their home, because now they’ve decided their only recourse is to sell and move elsewhere.
Baisa told New Times their lawyer advised them not to speak with the press but added that they don’t feel safe in SLO and won’t be talking to the press for fear of reprisal.
That’s truly unfortunate. Still, caveat emptor, gentlemen. The Libertine has been there since 2012 and hosting live music for a decade. The city did modify the venue’s permit in June 2025 to extend operating and event hours, which allow live music to 10 p.m. on Sunday through Wednesday and 1 a.m. on Thursday through Saturday, but it limits the number of live events to just three days a week. You should have been around in the ’90s! You would have hated it!
“We’ve never gone until 1 a.m., I can tell you that right now,” Libertine event manager John Pranjic told New Times for an earlier story. “The latest that we would normally go is 11:30 [p.m.] and sometimes we go until midnight. But we don’t push it beyond that because we do want to be good neighbors.”
I think many SLObispians sympathize with Barnard and Baisa, except maybe for the public commenter who suggested they “invest in some earplugs.” Ouch. But to her credit, she may have been responding to Baisa’s self-entitled attack on the Libertine to “run your business appropriately. Take care of your neighbors. Be responsible and insulate your building.”
Huh? You bought a house in a downtown near an established nightclub, guys. You should have known there’d be noise.
Barnard and Baisa seemed very alone in their condemnation of Libertine: “In the eight years that my family has lived one block from Libertine, concert noise or other disruptions have never been a problem,” another neighbor said.
The complainers also claimed that Pranjic told them to move and harassed and intimidated them, while Pranjic claimed the couple would “stand within arm’s length of our patio, our patron queue, and our front entrance and photograph our guests and staff.”
Pranjic said he never told them to move. It’s a classic case of “he and he said, he said.” I hope you two guys find a suitably quiet home. Now party on, Wayne and Garth.
Speaking of parties, Jimmy Paulding is throwing himself a pity party because his California Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) complaint against his opponent, Adam Verdin, for the 4th District county supervisor’s seat has been dismissed.
Paulding accused Verdin of accepting twice the legal political donation from development company Covelop Inc., which gave Verdin $11,800 though the legal limit is $5,900 per race. On its face, sure, sounds like double dipping, but Covelop and Verdin said half was for the primary and half for the general—two separate races, see? Verdin said that if the race is decided in the June primary—and it will be barring a new candidate joining before the March 6 deadline—he’ll return the money.
A very loud shot and an even louder miss, Paulding. Ouch! I bet it hurts.
But he’s doubling down on his complaints about Verdin’s donations from developers. In a Feb. 19 statement Paulding said, “ … voters should look at the bigger picture. This election is about who you want influencing the decisions being made for our community: developers or the people who live and work here?
“This race isn’t about whether we need housing. We do. It’s about whether growth is responsible, sustainable, and supported by infrastructure, and whether elected officials answer to residents or to the interests financing their campaigns,” Paulding added.
I guess “playing nice” isn’t in the cards for this race. ∆
The Shredder plays to tie. Tell everyone to have fun at shredder@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Weddings 2026.
Sounds like Tom and Chris (and maybe their realtor) missed some pretty basic neighborhood detective work…like seeing a popular, busy, neighborhood brewery nearby. I applaud Libertine for doing what they could to appease these two, but shame, shame, shame on them for their actions. Appreciate the city being the voice of reason in this instance. Sorry fellas.
Moving shouldn’t be an issue for Tom and Chris, if they bought before 2024, their equity blew up. Good luck selling though, no one can afford to buy unless they are a millionaire. The working class is cooked.