Dear editor,
I am writing about the new busker bylaw. I think it would be simpler way to do the following:
First, make three signs. There would be a silhouette of a guitar player on all three signs.
1. The red circle with a line through the silhouette says no busking.
2. The silhouette in the green circle says busking permitted.
3. Finally, the silhouette is framed by a narrow green line with the words Apply Within below the silhouette.
This sign gives all control to the business owner.
Make the digital files for these signs available on your website. This way, businesses have full control over who if any buskers works for them. They can download and print out the sign they need.
As far as registering with a fee of $25 and then dictated to where we work just isn’t fair.
I personally have worked diligently to earn my spot on Fifth Street. I can’t pay $25 (that is three days busking) and I know some excellent musicians who only come out a few times a year. They would be silenced.
I hope you will to remove that fee. I know I can’t afford it. Not having the busking money means my diet is going to be less healthy. That is how important it is — after all I haven’t done any thing wrong.
Why not have a signup sheet at City hall and each entertainer gets a number which must be displayed where the artist is performing?
Is the fee really that important? These are costs that have to be covered by people, most of whom are living below the poverty line or much lower.
There seems too be a desire to keep out performers from other towns and cities.
In the world of art we feed on communication, new relations, new sounds and we grow because of it. It is not bad to have visiting artists; it is enlightening.
I also think buskers are getting unfairly attacked for “noise” when there are monster trucks, motorcycles, cars with massive music boxes vibrating the street, people talking, babies crying, and mumbling loudspeakers desperately trying to reproduce music.
In fact, Fifth Street is a bustling mass of sights, sounds and smells. How can people pick out the lowly busker from all that?
Keith Thomson,
Courtenay
