Collective says buskers are not panhandlers

Street musicians and entertainers hope to distinguish themselves from transients and panhandlers by creating more specific city laws.

The Asheville Buskers Collective and the Asheville Public Safety Committee will discuss possible changes to the ordinance that governs sidewalk entertainment at a public meeting at 3:30 p.m. Monday.

"It's an archaic system that bundles street performers with panhandling, and as our town grows, we find that it needs to be updated," said Marc Hennessey, who often plays the electric fiddle on Pack Square and is a member of the Asheville Buskers Collective, an organized group of street performers.

The Buskers Collective has been working with the Asheville Downtown Association to craft suggested changes to the rules since a Public Safety Committee meeting last September. The group recently submitted recommended adjustments to the ordinance to city staff, who will discuss those recommendations at the meeting Monday.

Legal officials from the city and the Asheville Police Department met privately with the Buskers Collective on April 20 to discuss ideas and prepare for the Monday meeting.

Hennessey said the city seemed "reluctant," although he remains optimistic that changes to the ordinance will lead to easier relationships with police officers regarding signage and crowds as well as the sale of CDs, which is currently illegal.

The Monday meeting is a preliminary step to changing the ordinance. The Public Safety Committee doesn't make decisions about policy. Rather, it recommends what issues go before City Council as a whole. If it sends the ordinance and the Buskers Collective's ideas to council for review, a public hearing will take place to gather community input before changes are made.

The proposed changes do not include any sort of permitting requirement that would require street performers to register with the city. Rather the buskers have proposed a system of self-regulation that would require them to monitor one of the main points of contention: crowded sidewalks.

"I think the current sticking point has been sidewalk blocking," said Councilman Jan Davis, chairman of the Public Safety Commitee. "A lot of them come here and are just passing through and don't know the ordinance."

The law says entertainers must provide six feet of pedestrian passageway.

The Buskers Collective has volunteered to distribute a printed guide on busking etiquette to teach performers the rules. This idea will be part of what the Public Safety Committee considers on Monday.

The Asheville Police Department has been involved in possible changes to the ordinance since last year. Sgt. Jackie Stepp, who has worked downtown for 10 years, said she'd like to get some clarification on the rules that govern street performers.

"What is a performance?" she asked. "To you and I, it could be one thing, and to somebody else it could be the dirty sock guy playing puppets."

As a result of the confusion, Stepp said officers almost never issue citations to performers. Instead, they talk to buskers who are breaking the rules and make "field contact," which is essentially a record of a warning.

"You make contact with someone and instead of issuing a citation, you just fill out a form," she says. "Last year, we issued thousands and thousands of verbal warnings to the same people. There maybe should have been some citations, but we didn't do that."

She says buskers who live in Asheville, such as Hennessey and Abby the Spoon Lady (Abby Roach), know the rules and follow them, but performers from out of town bring the whole group under scrutiny.

"By the time you add four or five performers with two or three dogs and their instruments on sidewalks that are very small, it becomes difficult to allow pedestrians to move freely and safely," she said. "We're just trying to keep downtown safe for everyone."

On the whole, she said she supports the buskers. She thinks more specific rules will benefit everyone involved.

John Fleer, who owns Rhubarb restaurant on Pack Square, a popular busking center, said there's a big difference between the beloved buskers who frequent his corner, such as Roach and Hennessey, and "someone sitting on the sidewalk with a guitar." He welcomes the former — he's even displayed information about them in the restaurant and invited them to perform at staff parties. But he says vagrants who imitate performers are a problem.

"(Busking) is tied up with the transient issues that are damaging to our business and other businesses around the city," he said, adding the transient problem should be treated as a "separate issue."

He says he's "pro-busker" and would like to see their existence become "less contentious."

Fleer could get his wish depending on what happens at the meeting. The committee has several options: It can send the ordinance to City Council for review, it can recommend city staff research further, or it can do nothing and table the issue, meaning the ordinance would remain in its current form.

The committee will likely hear comment from the public, Davis says, although any change to the law will not take place Monday. It will happen at a later meeting of City Council.

In the meantime, the Asheville Buskers Collective is rallying support with a marching band-style event on Friday. A group of performers will meet at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium at 5 p.m. and walk together to the plaza in front of the Asheville Art Museum, where they'll perform as a "super band," Hennessey said.

"It's a hot topic right now, and we want to engage the public and educate people ... and just reinforce how much people love street performers in Asheville," he says.