BUTLER TWP — Butler Township Commissioners voted Monday to begin reviewing possible changes to township rules regulating noise at businesses, after a bar owner and residents of a neighboring property said they doubted their dispute could be resolved privately.

The vote came after a lengthy back-and-forth discussion and public comment period on the issue, which centers on the sports bar Rock Ann Haven on Greenwood Drive.

Fuji Sisca and Greg Macklin, who live across the street from Rock Ann Haven, say music from the business is audible and identifiable from inside their home at 140 Greenwood Drive.

The pair have called township police on multiple occasions and filed complaints, and also have called the state police’s Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, which reportedly has cited the bar multiple times for noise violations.

Kirk Kearn, the bar’s owner, told the commissioners Monday that the state rules, which bar any audible noise outside a business, are unreasonable.

“This is a law that’s impossible to comply with,” he said.

Kearn asked the commissioners last month to consider petitioning the LCE to allow the township to take over noise enforcement — something’s that possible because of the unusual way the state’s 2011 law giving the LCE precedence over township rules is constructed.

Kearn said his business has tried to limit noise from its live musical entertainment, which takes place on most evenings, but is frustrated by what he’s hearing from township officials.

“I’m getting a feeling of no support from my own community,” he said.

Several Greenwood Drive residents spoke in support of Kearn and his business at Monday’s meeting.

Township Police Chief John Hays said the township’s noise ordinance, which allows a business to create 90 decibels of noise 25 feet from its property line, isn’t designed to police the kind of issues being raised by the Rock Ann Haven dispute.

“I don’t think our ordinance is designed to handle situations like the one we’re in now,” he said.

Hays said he believes the township needs to amend its rules if the department is to assume enforcement responsibilities.

He said there are about 17 other establishments with amusement licenses — which is what the LCE is currently regulating — in the township.

Theoretically it’s possible for the township to only assume enforcement responsibilities for Rock Ann Haven, said solicitor Larry Lutz, but he urged commissioners not to take that route, saying the action could be reversed by a judge as improper.

“I think if you’re going to do it, it’s got to be all or none,” Lutz said.

Sisca took issue Monday with commissioners’ decision to take up the issue at all, saying other bars in the township don’t have problems conforming with LCE regulations.

“There is a state law that protects us,” she said. “I don’t understand why you’re even considering this.”

She said other neighbors of the bar have complained privately to her, but she didn’t think to bring them to Monday’s meeting.

The commissioners, before their vote, asked the parties to consider resolving their dispute privately, but Kearn expressed doubt that it was possible and Macklin said he wasn’t willing to participate in any discussions. Commissioners’ Chairman Joe Hasychak said the review of other townships’ noise ordinances would likely take some time.

“It’s going to take a while for us to do this,” he said. “Things will stay the same,” while that happens.