A judge said no concerts. Why was there live music at CAA Park in Catonsville?

You can hear the music on Maxwell Bloch’s deck in Catonsville. It’s easy to distinguish the vocals, guitar, drums and bass from the bands playing at CAA Park, some 200 feet from his home.

“When I go inside, it’s just noise. The low-frequency emissions of ‘thud, thud, thud,’” said Bloch, 40. “You would think you could go inside to turn off the sound.”

For the first summer in two years, Bloch and at least a dozen other residents near CAA Park thought they had found peace. In June, a Baltimore County administrative judge ruled the live concerts organized by the Music City Maryland Association, a nonprofit concert promoter in Catonsville, were not permitted. The park where it had built a permanent stage and venue called The Vortex was not zoned for live music entertainment.

But in mid-August, the music association’s application for a gathering permit for an arts festival featuring local arts and crafts and live band performances was approved for Aug. 29.

When residents saw it promoted online, they wondered how it was allowed.

“I am confused and astonished about the event today,” Bloch said the day of the concert. “ I would like to believe that, when a judge says this is not permitted, then it will not happen.”

How music came to the park

Catonsville has long embraced its reputation as “Music City Maryland” through free concerts on Frederick Road, the town’s main stretch, every summer Friday.

In 2019, Sun Rider 9 Productions, a music promotion and film company, put on the First Annual Music City Maryland Festival in a parking lot behind Jennings Cafe on Frederick Road. In 2022, Sun Rider 9 partnered with a new nonprofit, the Music City Maryland Association, to organize concerts in Catonsville.

By 2023, these concerts had moved to the park and ballfields owned by the Christian Athletic Association on Ingleside Avenue. That summer, the association hosted at least six Saturdays in the Park concerts at CAA Park. Joseph Gardenghi, Music City Maryland Association president, later testified to an administrative judge that he wanted the festival to have a “more permanent presence.”

Gardenghi and JD Barth, founder of Sun Rider 9 Productions, did not return emails and calls. Art Warshaw, a CAA board member, did not respond to an email request for comment.

Anne Allen and her husband bought their home on St. Timothys Lane in 2020, right behind CAA Park, around the time she gave birth to twins. In the summer of 2023, they would often walk over to listen to the music.

“It was makeshift. They had a quick stage and some bands, and we loved it,” Allen, 42, said. The concerts took place on the far side of CAA Park. Bands played on a portable stage under a tent with portable speakers and amplifiers, she said.

Everything changed when The Vortex launched the following summer. The Vortex was now a “premier venue,” on 12 acres of tree-lined, landscaped space for private bookings, according to the Music City Maryland Association’s website. In the intervening year, CAA built a wooden shed structure and set it up as a stage. A tiki bar and picnic tables were installed.

The concerts now ran all day and disrupted her children’s bedtimes, Allen said. Her windows shook from the bass.

CAA put up a fence. It installed portable toilets directly in the Allens’ line of sight.

“Those are up all summer long,” she said. “Based on the wind or how hot it is, sometimes we just can’t be out in our front yard because of the smell.”

John and Kate Walsh live next door to the Allens. They watched The Vortex’s shed get built but weren’t sure what was going on. The concerts were now much louder and ran from noon to night almost every summer Saturday. The bass from the amplifiers was “relentless. It was very annoying,” said John Walsh, 75.

John Walsh began to look into what happened. He found that, when applying for a building permit in 2024, CAA, which owned the property, said it was building an accessory “storage building for field maintenance.” No issue of zoning ever arose, he said.

But the Music City Maryland Association, which leased part of the park for The Vortex, used it as a concert stage in the warmer months, not for storage, Walsh said.

Walsh found the park and fields were zoned residential. CAA had received a special exception allowing for athletic uses.

Last fall, he notified Baltimore County’s Department of Permits, Approvals and Inspections, which launched an investigation and referred the case to the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Administrative law judge Derek Baumgardner ruled in June that the live concerts and events at The Vortex are prohibited under the zoning ordinance. The rest of the shows at The Vortex were canceled or moved to another venue.

Then came the Facebook post announcing the Aug. 29 event.

“What is really demoralizing is the county,” said Kate Walsh, 68. “They just seem so indifferent to the whole situation.”

Pete Gutwald, director of the Baltimore County Department of Permits, Approvals and Inspections, said the judge left it at his discretion to issue gathering permits.

“They put on their application that they were going to have live music. We have tons of these gathering permits that are issued that have live music,” Gutwald said. “It’s considered an arts and crafts festival, so we issued it.”

Gutwald said, because the Music City Maryland Association is a nonprofit organization, his office can issue a nonprofit gathering permit at no cost. For-profit entities need to apply for a different permit and hold events only in areas zoned for commercial or industrial use.

“This was presented differently,” Gutwald said. “ To me it’s pretty straightforward.”

Something ‘really special’

It was 82 degrees on the day of the concert. People slowly streamed into CAA Park all afternoon and into the evening. Two stages were set up on the fields by the parking lot.

A dozen arts vendors were set up at The Vortex, far from the stages, and appeared to get little foot traffic. Bands played reggae, ska, rockabilly, classic rock and surf rock.

Lisa Smith, 63, wondered why the bands were playing on temporary stages, rather than in The Vortex area.

“Knowing their history, I very much assumed that they moved the music as far away from the neighbors,” she said. Smith said she understood the zoning issue and frustration about the sound, but she supports The Vortex.

“I enjoy live music. I enjoy being outside. I think that’s something really special we have in this neighborhood,” she said.

Jay Marszal, 62, has attended shows put on by the Music City Maryland Association for years. “It’s a great way to bring the community together,” he said. “You get to listen to bands all day.”

He said he didn’t think it would bother him if he lived around the park. “In fact, I would like it because I could probably sit outside and listen to it for free,” he said.

A quiet neighborhood

Bloch said he was disappointed in the county for allowing the Aug. 29 concert and the officials who tell him there’s nothing they can do.

“Who do I even talk to who’s going to listen and not point the finger the other way and can offer any kind of acknowledgment or remedy?” he said. “Someone can choose to go to that concert or not. I can’t choose.”