Edinburgh tanning salon threatened with operating licence loss if excessive noise not addressed

An Edinburgh tanning salon has been threatened with the loss of its operating licence if it does not address neighbours’ concerns about excessive noise.

Residents living near the Indigo Sun branch on Lothian Road have complained since last year about music from the salon disturbing them throughout the day.

The concerns saw a decision on whether to renew the salon’s licence kicked back from a licensing meeting in May to one on Monday.

At the May meeting, councillors asked council noise officers to conduct a survey at the salon and in one of the flats to gain an understanding of the noise levels heard.

On Monday, the officers reported back to say that a ‘buzzing base’ was audible inside the flat, and that they were confident it was coming from the salon.

And they said that the tanning salon had refused a licence condition which asked it to limit the amount of sound it was producing.

The tenant in the flat told the Licensing Sub-Committee on Monday that the day of the survey was the first one in months where the music was quiet.

She told the committee: “Unfortunately, the sound issue and the music disturbance hasn’t been resolved, it is still ongoing – it was still ongoing even yesterday morning.

“It’s disruptive – on Sunday mornings, Tuesday nights, it’s completely random. The base buzzing has reduced, but it still spikes.

“And the base beat is still on in my property virtually all the time. This is seven days a week. This is a significant disturbance in my life.”

Three other residents of the Lothian House complex, which the tanning salon is on the ground floor of, also sent complaints in to the council.

She said that the tanning salon had asked her to stop contacting them to ask for the volume to be lowered, or else they would pursue her for harassment.

According to her, the refusal to communicate has made passing a detailed log of when and what type of sound was being heard in her flat difficult.

A manager for the salon, who was present at Monday’s meeting and the sound test, said: “We couldn’t get anything audible in the property above while I was on site.

“As I say, that’s not to say that there isn’t a certain set of circumstances we’ve tried to establish.

“It’s not that we didn’t want to accept [the licence condition], it’s just that it’s an ambiguous condition that wouldn’t resolve the noise complaint.”

At the meeting, councillors voted to cause the salon’s licence to be suspended by December 1 if the noise from it is still audible to neighbouring flats by that date.

Liberal Democrat councillor Jack Caldwell asked officers: “How is the objector to get these logs to the applicant, is it through the environmental health team?”

Environmental health officer Claire Devlin suggested that her office could facilitate getting the tenant’s noise log to the tanning salon.

Sub-committee convener and Conservative councillor Joanna Mowat asked the tenant for more information about the noise she was hearing.

The tenant replied: “My initial complaint was in March to May 2024. At that period of time, the music was extremely loud, the music was really audible.

“I could hear Calvin Powers in my bedroom, I went downstairs, it was the same song playing in the store. And that happened on a number of occasions.”

She said that the high volume of the music inside her flat had stopped after May, but that it resumed in October, with that lasting until February when a council officer visited the salon.

But, even with the lyrics and melody of music not being constantly audible, she says there is a persistent sound of buzzing base in the flat.

SNP councillor Norman Work suggested that any future noise surveys be carried out without the tanning salon being aware.

And Liberal Democrat councillor Jack Caldwell suggested giving the salon time to rectify the issue before a licence revocation occurs.

Summing up, Cllr Mowat said: “We asked for the report, environmental protection came back and said ‘yes, there is [sound], but we don’t quite know how it’s escaping and getting through the building’.

“And there have been other reports within Lothian House, which is, I don’t even want to think about the architecture there.

“So in my view, we should take councillor Caldwell’s suggestion, prove it, and say that we would expect the condition to be enforced by the first of November.”

The November deadline means the salon will technically have a month longer to address the issue, as the council would need to give the business notice about the impending revocation.