3.2 Good Acoustic Design for Licensed Premises

A good licensed premises design is essential to prevent noise arising from breakout/transmission from the premises from disturbing the nearby residents. Common causes of noise breakout include opened doors, opened windows and vent openings which, because of holes, gaps and openings offer no resistance to noise leakage. Many potential problems can be avoided by proper designs of windows, doors and ventilation systems. Also, the "Box-in-box" design (e.g. an independent structure (the inner box) isolated from the main building structure (the outer box) using resilient mountings) can achieve high degree of isolation efficiency for airborne and structure-borne noise. Therefore, it is highly recommended that liquor licence applicants should seek advice from acoustic experts helping them to suitably design the noise mitigation measures. The acoustic expert could also help check and verify the compliance of mitigation measures with the relevant EPD's noise criteria. Good noise mitigation design of licensed premises would support the applicant's application for the appropriate liquor licence.