The residents of St John’s Wood – a supposedly salubrious part of northwest London with some of the capital’s most expensive properties – are most unhappy.
Their patch has become infested with drug-dealing gangs, who have a sideline in vandalising the locals’ cars.
But when one of the anxious residents sent pictures of offences being committed to the police, he received an email in response suggesting, among other measures: ‘You can also contact your housing association/the council and ask them to play classical music, as this has been proven to deter and prevent crimes.’
What? Was the council expected to hire the London Symphony Orchestra to serenade the gangsters as they pillaged the neighbourhood?
The idea did not go down well.
One resident, who had been confronted in her garden by one of the recently supplied drug addicts, told the Sun newspaper: ‘Telling us to play classical music is just stupid.’
Discourage
The police then issued a statement: ‘While clearly well-intentioned, the advice in the email sent to the resident in this case doesn’t reflect Met policy.’
In fact, the advice was neither novel nor flippant – even if residents would much have preferred their neighbourhood to be flooded with policemen rather than men in bow ties playing violins (or recordings of them).
The idea dates back 40 years. In 1985, a 7-Eleven convenience store in Montreal sought the advice of psychologists on how they could deter young vagabonds who were perpetually loitering outside, to the concern of shoppers.
One of the ideas from this brainstorming was – to quote from the book Music In American Crime Prevention And Punishment – ‘to play easy listening or classical music in the parking lot.
St John’s Wood has become infested with drug-dealing gangs, who have a sideline in vandalising the locals’ cars
Was the council expected to hire the London Symphony Orchestra (pictured in 2019) to serenade the gangsters as they pillaged the neighbourhood
The thinking was this kind of music is not popular with teens and may discourage them from hanging out at the store’.
It seemed to work, and was followed up by other retailers. And there was (eventually) a trial in the UK.
In 2003, classical music crime-busting was used in London at the Elm Park tube station on the District Line; apparently, the gang presence was so intimidating at that time that London Transport staff were afraid to work there.
According to The Independent: ‘Within 18 months, robberies were cut by 33 per cent, assaults on staff by 25 per cent, and vandalism by 37 per cent as the voice of Pavarotti made troublemakers scarper.’
It was as if beauteous music had the effect on the bad guys that, in horror films, daylight has on Count Dracula. Although it seems plausible that this would only displace the criminality to other areas, a sort of musical chairs.
A supposedly scientific explanation was given by the Seattle Times (the policy was introduced in the American city in 2009): ‘The reason certain types of music work as a crime deterrent, neurologists say, may lie in people’s neurobiological responses to things they don’t enjoy or find unfamiliar.
‘When people hear music they like, it stimulates dopamine production and puts them in a better mood. But when people dislike the music, their brains respond by suppressing dopamine production – souring their mood and making them avoid the music.’
Well, yes: department of the bleeding obvious. But this touches on a matter which affects so many of us. I speak of those who actually love classical music, and who intensely dislike the imposition of pop and rock, which is our inescapable fate when we go out for a meal, almost anywhere.
This is not just the British experience. Research by SoundPrint, a ‘hospitality app’ created by a New Yorker called Gregory Scott, who suffers from loss of hearing and wanted to help others find quieter venues, showed that our restaurants have been getting noisier – and that London’s are the most deafening in Europe.
Blaring
The point is that, in order to be heard by their dining companions above the ‘whump-whump-whump’ of the recorded music being pounded out, people have to shout rather than speak.
In my minuscule way, I have been conducting a campaign against this. When I go to a restaurant and the canned music is blaring – especially when it has an insistent percussive beat that makes my brain seem to rattle – I ask the nearest member of staff whether they could turn it down.
When I go to a restaurant and the canned music is blaring, I ask the nearest member of staff whether they could turn it down, writes Dominic Lawson (file image)
The range of responses is interesting. Sometimes they do – a little – and I am very grateful.
But at one quaint old Kentish pub (which you would think really didn’t need to be ‘improved’ by imported artificial din), the man in charge declined my polite request to turn it down, observing that ‘the other customers would object’.
‘Why not see if they complain?’ I replied. That did not go down particularly well.
My efforts are not confined to this country. Recently, in Krakow, at a restaurant with a stunning rooftop view of the great Polish city, we found ourselves to be the only diners.
But my request to get the terrible muzak turned down was clearly most unwelcome – even, or rather especially, when I pointed out that they had no other customers to express a dissenting opinion.
A more intriguing response (which may well have been entirely truthful) was expressed to me by a charming waitress in a hotel dining room in Prague, which was almost as deserted as that one in Krakow.
She informed me that, to comply with the list of services required for the hotel to get a certain ranking by the various licensing authorities, the provision of muzak at all times was actually mandated.
I suppose it’s not just a matter of the (ever more inescapable) noise that makes my dopamine levels plunge: for if they played the sort of music I like – for example the Bach and Vivaldi employed to deter loitering teenagers outside some stores in North America – then doubtless I’d be happy, providing it was not at a volume that made conversation difficult.
Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega was forced out of his refuge inside the Vatican embassy in Panama City by the US army blasting the building with non-stop rock music
Silence
But the point is that the restaurants want to attract the greatest number of customers and, in simple terms, Radio 1 is much more popular than Radio 3. So those of us who infinitely prefer the latter are the victims of a form of mass catering plebiscite.
We, the minority, are on the side of the late Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, who, in 1989, was forced out of his refuge inside the Vatican embassy in Panama City by the US army blasting the building with non-stop rock music.
Noriega was one drug trafficker with good taste: an opera-lover. Had the American military played Puccini, the Panamanian strongman would never have broken down.
But musical silence is the best treatment of all – a policy that worked when our children were younger, and before the age of iPhones with private ear attachments. They wanted pop on the car radio, I wanted classical.
The argument was invariably settled when I said they could have their music – though I didn’t use that term – for an hour, if I was allowed to have Radio 3 for a similar period. That was unbearable to them, so we had complete musical disarmament.
I realise all this makes me seem insufferable: a point made emphatically by my wife, who says, whenever I moan about restaurant muzak: ‘Why can’t you just ignore it?’
If only I could.