Residents living in the northern part of the GTA say they are getting inundated with noise pollution after Bruno Mars opened the summer concert season at Rogers Stadium this weekend.

In Vaughan, as far as 11 kilometres away from the arena in Downsview Park, one resident Heather Cohn reported hearing the heavy bass from the concert venue.

“When I first heard the noise at around 8:50 … I thought, ‘Ok someone’s in the neighbourhood, they’ve got all their windows open, and the car is rocking’ instead, the whole neighbourhood was rocking,” explained Cohn.

Cohn lives near Bathurst Street and Highway 7 and had no clue where the sound was coming from at first. She spent some time trying to figure out where the noise was coming from, pacing in and out of her house. She even googled if there were any concerts in the nearby park and contemplated jumping in her car to find the source of the noise.

“And then I figured it out, because I was conversing with my daughter, who was at the concert with my two grandchildren, that in fact I was listening to the concert,” said Cohn. “It was shocking.”

She wasn’t alone. Residents took to social media saying they could hear the concert from places like Yonge Street and Steeles Avenue and even Major Mackenzie Drive and Dufferin Street.

Local councillor James Pasternak said upgrades were made to the venue since last year, including adding new vinyl cladding, to try and dampen the sound and address neighbourhood concerns following several noise complaints during last year’s concert season.

“Clearly some of the things we’ve worked on over the past year are not bearing fruit. I think there were probably design flaws in the stadium itself,” said Pasternak. “We presented a number of different options to maintain a lower decibel level. And a couple were adopted and others were not.”

A Rogers Stadium spokesperson said in a statement that last night’s weather played a role in how sound from the venue travelled

“Weather can significantly affect how sound moves through the city. Temperature, humidity, and cloud cover can all cause sound to travel farther than usual, and last night’s conditions were not ideal,” read the statement.

In fact, experts say Sunday night’s conditions created a perfect cocktail for sound travel.

“For yesterday’s incident, which was a stable humid night, 97 per cent humidity in the air, and if there was a temperature inversion and favorable wind direction, then sound waves can be refracted back towards the ground instead of dispersing upward. So that can allow low frequency concert bass to travel much farther than expected,” explained Tanzina Mohsin, an associate professor of climatology at the University of Toronto.

Councillor Pasternak said while much of the evening went well, conversations will continue regarding the noise.

“We will continue to engage Live Nation. We will continue to work on this. We are not going to abandon the residents who are upset by it. I mean, there are others who enjoyed the concert. Over 50,000 people were at the concert. People had lawn parties. And we also had a very successful traffic mitigation plan outcome. So, some things are going well, but we’re not there yet,” shared Pasternak.

Meanwhile, Rogers Stadium says they are reviewing everything ahead of the next show, which is slated for Wednesday.