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I would like to know if I went to New Orleans if I would be arrested. I read all of the responses but come on. New Orleans seems like the place to be if you are a street performer and it is not allowed? So is there any kind of permit, and if one were to visit, where would the good locations be?
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Hi Peter! Sorry to hear about your brush with the cops. Do you think they've had orders to clamp down before Mardi Gras? At least they didn't tell you to leave town like they do the panhandlers! By the way, how much was the ticket worth? Incidentally, there is a $75 licence issued to visual artists. I guess if you're selling something tangible, it's okay?Comment
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Howdy howdy!
I'm going to New Orleans around March 24, 2003 to do some henna/ mehndi busking. Does one need a license for body-art in NOLA? If so, where can I obtain this license? Also*** Anyone need a ride to New Orleans around that time? I will need help with the driving and the gas. Please email me at squidink45@hotmail.com -Thanks, Allison
[ 03-09-2003: Message edited by: Allison ]</p>Comment
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You can get arrested in NOLA if you work after 8pm on Bourbon Street. There is no street performing licence. Henna is considered street art, not busking, and you need an artist permit from the City Hall, which is 175$, and you have to wait for about a month or two to get it after you apply in person.Comment
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I'm on my way to NOLA to see Jazz Fest and prolly try to do some shows. Can performers still store their stuff at that magic shope? If not, is there anyplace in the french quarter to stash my trunk at night?Comment
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Hey....
I am coming down to Nola in a couple of weeks. I am confused.. can I do a circle show? Can I use fire?
Where is the best place to stay ?Comment
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I went to the New Orleans city council meeting today where they made it really hard to do shows on Jackson Square. Basicly they made it illegal for anyone other than artists who do paintings to set up anywhere other than on Chartres St. And on Chartres you cant perform in front of the cathedral at all, and you have to stay 20' away from the fence and 20' away from the buildings. You won't have much space, and you will have to fight a bunch of taro card readers for it. Usually the readers set up on the side streets, but they won't be able to any more with this new law, so they will move in on the circle show space.
They mayor hasn't signed the bill yet, so it isn't official, but it probably will be; we wont' know until they start handing out tickets.
You can still perform on Royal street.
This law is totally illegal, as it specificly favors one group of artists over another, but it will take time to fight. A civil injunction has allready been filed, but it will take time and money.
Fire- you need an open flame permit, which costs $30 a month and you have to show them what you are doing with it.
BTW, it's hot here and the season has aparently been really crap so far. From what I understand it will be getting slower after this weekend.
[ 05-03-2003: Message edited by: Evan Young ]</p>Comment
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Well, it isn't as if we weren't warned, even though Councilperson J. Clarkson did sneak the legislation (Cal.No.24,708) thru with no notification of those affected. I learned about it the night before the council meeting and Evan's report (and the newspaper article) outline the basic facts.
Folks, this is the old salami game. As early as last summer (see this thread) there were indications that Clarkson and her puppet police captain fully intend to run street performance out. A slice at a time, this legislation purports to help "save the dying artists colony." They speak with fork-ed toungue. The (licensed) artists say the colony is dying. Yet in the next breath they say their favored venue (the iron fence around Jackson Square) is being overrun by artists! THAT DOESN'T COMPUTE! If the "colony" is dying how come there are so many artists out there competing for space?
Ms. Clarkson lies when she says her "pro artist" legislation won't affect street musicians. My instrument weighs about 50 pounds. It sets on two waiters' stands. That qualifies as a "table" which is forbidden for any but the privileged visual artists. Tuba Fats can't sit in the few iron benches that were reinstalled after the construction work because they installed "arms" on the seats (ostensibly the keep drunks from sleeping on the benches). He can't sit there because he is too fat! Here is an internationally known jazz performer who will be banned from Jackson Square because he must bring his own chair with him -- which is forbidden for any but the privileged visual artists.
By the way "street performance" is defined in the ordinance as "musical performances, dances, mime, juggling, sword swallowing (!!), and magic shows."
As I say, it is the old salami game. They are intend to slice off our rights to perform on Jackson Square. Will Royal Street be next?And what about that paragon of virtue and abstinance Bourbon Street? And what is the City Council of Santa Cruz going to do when they find that New Orleans was able to get away with it?
Street performers of the world unite, you have nothing to loose but your chains (and handcuffs and juggling clubs and musical instruments)!
(By the way, how DO the police handcuff an escape artist?)Comment
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Riighhht...
So do I even bother schlepping my gear down there? I can travel much lighter sans amp, hoops and fire...
But I need to work goddamn it...Comment
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Ms.B -- After a careful reading of the new ordinance (which I understand has not yet been signed into law) it appears there has been some misinterpretation. I'm never willing to give up venues we have taken the time and energy to develop without a fight, but its important that we fight for valid reasons. At this point it looks as if there will still be room for circle shows to share. [BOY, WAS I WRONG. BRAD OTT WENT OUT WITH MASKING TAPE TONIGHT AND MARKED OFF THE AREA AVAILABLE FOR PERFORMANCE. IT IS A STRIP ABOUT FIVE FEET WIDE RUNNING THE LENGTH OF THE SQUARE IN ITS CENTER. IN FRONT OF THE CABILDO, WHERE THE DOREEN KETCHANS/TUBA FATS BAND PLAYS, AND THE PRESBYTERE, WHERE WILLOW PLAYS, THE STRIP IS A BIT WIDER]. As witness the stealth with which this legislation was passed, however, vigilance is required!
Here is a letter to the editor I'm posting today:
May 3, 2003
Letters to the Editor
3800 Howard Ave.
New Orleans, LA 70140
To the Editor:
"City Expels Entertainers from Square" (Metro Section,
5/2/03) is an inflammatory headline and (probably) misleading.
Either your reporter misread the ordinance or he is privy to
information not available to we of the general public. It appears
to me (upon reading the eight pages of verbiage in the hastily
passed law) that the ordinance reserves for the exclusive use of
the 200 "licensed" visual artists a huge twenty-foot swath around the
Charters, St. Peter and St. Anne sides of Jackson Square. That,
in actuality, leaves some small amount of space for performance
artists, musicians and other buskers, if only on Charters St. and if only a strip about five feet wide!
What distresses me is that this legislation was apparently
prepared and snuck into the Council agenda without its sponsors
being courteous enough to alert the rest of us affected. I
learned of the impending council action by word-of-mouth only the
night before when, by that time, it was impossible to get an
official copy of the proposed law for review.
I have used the down-river side of the Jackson Square
Charters Street gate as a pitch for my glass harmonica act since
coming to town nearly ten years ago. Since I seldom take up space
along the fence when it is being used to display art I have
seldom had problems with area artists. I feel unhappy that this
venue will no longer be available to me. I feel unhappy that the
popular "circle" shows (some of which draw very large audiences)
will now lap over into the emergency vehicle lane in front of the
Cathedral. I feel unhappy for the card readers who will be forced
out of areas where their clients have come to find them.
It is ironic that the artists on the one hand warn that the
"Art Colony" is dying while, on the other, claim they are being
squeezed out because there are too many artists. That doesn't
compute! Folks, a little courtesy goes a long way. Lets talk
rather than shout at each other. As that great American
philosopher Rodney King once said, "Can't we all get along?
Can't we all just get along?"
Sincerely,
Peter (The GlassHarper) Bennett
[img]rolleyes.gif[/img]
[ 05-04-2003: Message edited by: GlassHarper ]
[ 05-04-2003: Message edited by: GlassHarper ]</p>Comment
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Anyone know the process for getting a fire permit?
What about amplification?
I realise Jackson square could be an issue at the mo, but is it legal elsewhere?Comment
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At the New Orleans Common Council meeting this morning action on the next phase of the "crack-down" on street performance (disallowing any "structure" in the right-of-way -- apparently defined as tables, chairs, gear boxes, etc.) was postponed 'till the meeting of June 5th.
When I got back to the square about 2:30 p.m. there was a patrolman going around telling all card readers that starting at 7 a.m. tomorrow (Friday, May 16th) they will be ticketing street performers (EXCEPT MUSICIANS) under the 20-foot "Artist's Zone" ordinance passed May 1 (which reserves to the exclusive use of licensed visual artists a 20-foot swath of publicly owned plaza land around three sides of the Jackson Square fence [five feet on Decatur Street]). This apparently applies to circle shows, too, since the only legal place for performance now (according to my reading of the ordinance) is a five to seven foot strip along the center of the Jackson Square Plaza. This, by the way, is aparently not the interpretation of Capt. Dabdoub, since the memo the officer showed me made no mention of the residual performance strip.
He said all Tarot card readers, mimes, joke-tellers (there are at least two in town)and balloon artists are included. He said musicians are not included in the order (to which I might add, "at least at this point).
The Attorney Joe Cook of the ACLU and an assistant were present at a protest demonstration of performance artists yesterday afternoon on the Square.
[ 05-15-2003: Message edited by: GlassHarper ]</p>Comment
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Peter. you're a musician, so you should be okay. As for the table you use, well it's more or less a part of the instrument, so again, you should be okay.Comment
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Well, so much for "not at this point." Tonight at 9:40 p.m. four foot patrolmen led by a Lt. Vacarella shut me down in the middle of a show saying it was, "...because the new ordinance prohibits any entertainers other than (visual) artists on Jackson Square." This certainly doesn't square with my reading of the ordinance and the specific measurements included therein, nor does it square with statments made in this morning's Times-Picayune by the Captain of the Police District and the Common Council member who represents the district.
Confusion reigns, if not rains. More news at ten!Comment
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