Breakthrough in the fight against maddening ringing in the ear: catering industry ‘finally’ joins crucial consultations

Recognizable for party animals: an annoying ringing in your ear after an evening of chatting along in a village pub. Often harmless and it goes away quickly. In some cases it takes weeks or even months; an obvious sign of hearing damage. Very occasionally the beep never goes away, we call that tinnitus. Music venues, festivals, cinemas and gyms have been working together since 2014 to prevent the risk of this serious form of hearing damage as much as possible. And with success. In few countries is the earplug as ‘sexy’ as in the Netherlands.

Of course: there is always room for improvement. That is why the covenant continues to renew itself every few years. However, this was done without an important body: Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN). The trade association was not looking forward to additional regulations and feared that participation would be expensive.

After an urgent appeal from the House of Representatives, which was followed by a series of stories on this site, KHN has decided to join after all. “We now feel that there is more room for concrete thinking as an industry and have written an action plan that looks at a phased approach, so that entrepreneurs also have the time to respond to this,” says KHN chairman Marijke Vuik.

And they get that time. The plan is for clubs and discos to be overhauled in 2024 and 2025. It won’t be the turn of cafés until 2026. “We look at noise levels, noise measurements, hearing protection, information for visitors, promoting the expertise of employees and knowledge and research,” says Vuik. It is not yet certain what this will mean in concrete terms. Knowledge Center SafetyNL, one of the covenant partners, expects even more prominent messages about wearing earplugs in bars. Think of billboards or posters on the facade, or in the toilet.

The idea is also to install more vending machines in catering establishments from which you can get earplugs. In addition, employees behind the bar will probably receive better information about hearing damage thanks to the input from other covenant partners. “We will also look at how we can take noise measurements in the easiest possible way, which will give us a better insight into the noise level,” says SafetyNL director Martijntje Bakker. This should ultimately lead to better, more beautiful, but above all safer sound: a win-win situation for all parties.

Within the agreement there is great joy with the long-awaited arrival of the catering industry. “By participating, the catering industry shows commitment to protecting both guests and employees against permanent hearing damage. They are committed to a graduated approach to give entrepreneurs time to adapt, with the aim of creating a feasible, feasible and affordable system,” says Berend Schans, director of the VNPF, one of the initiators of the agreement. “It is nice that the message is and will be seen more and more widely in society. Our visitors move everywhere.”

Henri Marres, chairman of the national ENT association, spoke critically last year about the so-called passive role of the catering industry. He is ecstatic that they have come to terms after several frantic attempts. “We now hope that the catering establishments will take immediate action. The easiest thing is to keep an eye on the volume knob and point out to their visitors the need to use hearing protection,” said Marres.

They will soon start doing this in Amsterdam. The municipality will start a pilot in discos to continuously measure the sound level of the music: rarely seen in the Netherlands. They take the example of the Belgian city of Leuven; permanent noise monitoring is installed in discos, with real-time insight for the DJ, manager, enforcement and the public. Amsterdam clubs will not be obliged to install this, but they will be offered to participate without obligation.

The question now remains: what can pub visitors expect in the long term? Will every café soon be safe for our ears? No, warns ENT doctor Dennis Kox. “The difficult thing about the catering industry is that it is extremely fragmented. Not every pub is a member of KHN. The question is whether a local party barn will care about this. But the signal alone is incredibly important and will have a huge impact. Now we are finally all together.”

For patient organization Hoormij.NVVS, simply participating in the agreement is not enough. “People are also at risk of hearing damage at the standard of 103 dB, so we continue to argue for lowering the standard, a legal obligation.” Van Ooijen does not like that legal obligation. According to the State Secretary, legislation is expensive and monitoring loud noise is difficult to implement. In doing so, he ignored the advice of the Health Council this summer.