Outlawing buskers?

Subject: Outlawing buskers?
From: Davetnova
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 07:02 AM

It would appear , if my reading is correct that"living places:powers,rights,responsibilities" the latest proposals from the Uk government will allow magistrates to impose community service orders on - beggars, rough sleepers, pedlars and BUSKERS. It looks like one more musical tradition down the New Labour tube.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 07:10 AM

Certainly buskers should be made to do community service, bloody layabouts. They should be made to play in the streets and entertain people.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 07:42 AM

its now called 'community punishment'!

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Willie-O
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 07:53 AM

Outlawing them is way too easy for the sods. Bloody ingrates'll just go and write songs about being outlaws. Suck em up off the streets with giant vacuum cleaners, turn them into glazed statues (after giving them a shave, haircut, bath and uniform), then erect the statues on the corners where they used to play, to give the streets some character without all that awful racket and the fear of offending some passerby with a politically incorrect lyric.

W-O

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: smallpiper
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:30 AM

I am in total agreement but with a proviso only those buskers who use amplification should be locked up! (they are too intrusive and limit competition)

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Mr Furrow
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:32 AM

Some of the buskers in Norwich ARE community punishment! Speaking as a member of the community, I feel punished every time I go near them.

Jon

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: reggie miles
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 10:03 AM

Willie O, they did just that in Santa Cruz, CA USA. There, near where he used to perform, the only known example, that I know of, exists. A statue was erected to a busker who played the streets there for about the last fifty years of his life. That's where I met him, (on the street that is). He was a master at playing the musical saw, an actual living legend, a saw god. The statue was created from funds collected by the street musicians guild to honor the memory of Tom Scribner. If you ever travel there, check it out. It's a half life size bronze of Tom bowing his saw. Far from being offensive, he played so beautifully that there is even a festival of saws that continues every year to attract players from all over the planet. The event takes place just outside of Santa Cruz. Each year players gather to play near Tom's statue as part of the event.

Believe me when I say I'm sympathetic to your plight. I've busked for years and still do now and again. I hate the regulations imposed locally by the bastards that dream them up and I'm saddened to hear that they've they will now alter this great tradition there in your communities.

Reggie Miles

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Gareth
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 10:43 AM

Ahhh Well at lkeast it's punishment in the community, being merciful there is no danger that they may have to share a cell with Lord Archer.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: weeds
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 10:58 AM

All fencers, bearwards, common players in interludes and minstrels, not belonging to any baron of the realm or towards any
other honourable personage of greater degree ... which ... shall wander abroad and have not license of two justices of the peace
... shall be judged rogues, vagabonds and sturdy beggars.

                   an Elizabethan statute of 1572


seems the problem has been around for awhile

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: The Shambles
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 01:58 PM

It would appear , if my reading is correct that"living places:powers,rights,responsibilities" the latest proposals from the Uk government will allow magistrates to impose community service orders on - beggars, rough sleepers, pedlars and BUSKERS.

Is there somewhere to find the details of these proposals?

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: The Shambles
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 02:06 PM

A recent 'reform' to a 1904 byelaw in Bath, shows official attitudes have changed little.

http://www.bathnes.gov.uk/Committee_Papers/HPP/hp000727/20Byelaw.htm

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: The Shambles
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 02:48 PM

I assume it is this story?

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=347823

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: maldenny
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 05:06 PM

Went busking for the first time recently - we got £20, a dog chew and a cold ommelette!

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: alanww
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 05:51 PM

As a sometime busker, I feel that my planned way of supplementing my meagre pension is now threatened ...
I certainly won't be voting Labour ever again, what with this and the PEL issue.   They are control freaks!!
"For I be free to go abroad ...!" Some hopes!
Alan

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Gareth
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 05:57 PM

- Anti Social behaviour - I interpret this to mean a member of the public would have to complain - and any more barrages of abuse when I refuse to pay up to any itinerents counts as anti - Social behaviour.

BTW If this proposed law means that the teeny bopper extortionate gangs aking for trick or treat, or singing one line of "we wish you a merry Xmas", and then demanding money - Well the sooner the better.

Gareth

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 09:42 PM

this goverment is a big load of shit, they are trying to make it illegal to play music, pel stuff etc, you need a speshial licence for music in pubs wich is very expensive, now they talking about making busking illegal, what next, perhaps in a few years time they will make it illegal to listen to music, they tried to get rid of the Taliban and are getting like them themselves!
9I was busking yeserday with amplification)!

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Mooh
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 10:14 PM

It was reported in the London (Ontario) Free Press today that a busking trumpeter beat a charge of obstructing traffic (I think that was the charge) in court, so maybe's there's hope.

Peace, Mooh.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 05:43 AM

We Buskers have a rule... avoid the wankers and wowzers who write the laws. Those who can't revel in their culture... make laws. Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 05:48 AM

A note on the above... in Oh the great grey past, there was a high wire busker who used to love the bag pipes, Phillip Petite. He walked a high wire between the towers of the World Trade Center, for which he was arrested, and given community service, performing for free in the parks. Well, at that time, we were being hounded by the local constabulary, we who busk in New York, so a few of us formed an association to get a petition around to take the heat off us. Petite once said to me, "I busk because I don't join associations, in fact, if it was legal, I probably would not do it!" I would not go that far as to say I do it because it is illegal, I think we have an ancestorial right to busk, but I have to think long and hard to summon up love for them who outlaw it.
Larry

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: alanabit
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 06:55 AM

So do I. Effectively, they are trying to prevent people from making a living.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: greg stephens
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 07:26 AM

Busking is an educational experience in many ways. As a white semi Anglo-Saxon male of Protestant background I am naturally immune from most of the prejudices in our society. But having lived as a busker, and also lived on a boat for 15 years, I feel i have at least a vague knowledge of how Right Thinking Citizens combine to revile and persecute the Other, the Enemy Within.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: GUEST,Seamus Kennedy
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 07:41 AM

When buskers are outlawed, only outlaws will have buskers.

Seamus

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: reggie miles
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 10:26 AM

What they, those who while away their hours trying to trying to regulate us into a financial corner, want is control. I believe some of them actually despise the fact that we can survive and thrive without dependence on their formal institutions. This form of "free enterprise", the original form, is unfamiliar to many who have grown accustomed to the prepackaged/processed variety set forth by those who profit from the control of entertainment. Don't get me started.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Fingerbuster
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 10:57 AM

I just can't believe this f*****g hopeless government. What next? Will people have to walk in single file? not speak above a whisper? all wear grey uniforms? For christs sake! majority of buskers (not the penny whistle brigade) play music, which not only brightens up the day for the (thinking) public, but sometimes gives the artist a little cash, which means he/she dosen't have to be a; Big f***ing issue salesperson(sic)
I'm voting Green party next time.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: GUEST,Bill
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 11:19 AM

I'm with Fingerbuster on this one. I did think of voting for the Raving Loony Party but WE'VE ALREADY GOT THEM.
bILL(THE SOUND)

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: Fingerbuster
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 11:21 AM

Yo Bill!
Nic.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: GUEST,Bill
Date: 02 Nov 02 - 08:50 PM

Hi Fingerbuster
Sorry i missed you at the Falcon--see you at the White Hart
Bill(the sound)

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: GUEST,Davetnova
Date: 03 Nov 02 - 09:12 AM

Shambles - I saw it in the Telegraph 1-11-02. Sorrow I'm late in replying but I usually log on at school and our filtering system is having problems with the language on Mudcat (Dialnet not me)

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 02:30 AM

Thanks, this is it.

New powers to fine litter louts
By Charles Clover
(Filed: 01/11/2002)


The document unveiled by Tony Blair at Birmingham's Urban Summit is intended to tackle problems ranging from dog fouling to fly posting.

The initiatives suggested in Living Places: Powers, Rights, Responsibilities, include:

Giving anyone working for a local authority the power to issue on-the-spot fines for dog fouling and littering.

Stronger powers to turn off nuisance burglar alarms.

Including chewing gum as litter.

Voluntary agreements among shopkeepers to limit the sale of chewing gum in badly littered areas.

Extending controls on the distribution of free literature to councils outside London.

Creating a new duty on the owners of street furniture to keep it clear of graffiti and fly posting.

Making householders subject to the same "duty of care" in handling their waste as businesses.

The deregulation of dog bylaws, giving local authorities the right to set their own penalty measures without consulting Westminster.

Increasing powers of magistrates to order community service for beggars, rough sleepers, pedlars and buskers.

Extending the duty to clear up litter to ponds and rivers.

Creating new regulations governing the positioning of external lighting, other than street lights, giving local authorities the power to serve statutory abatement notices on owners and occupiers of land contravening these regulations.

Giving local authorities and ministers the power to designate areas where fireworks would be banned and limiting the use of fireworks to specified dates and times.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: The Shambles
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 02:44 AM

I would hope that before the paid employees of our local authorities are give even more powers, that a more effective watchdog (than the one presently in operation), is created to protect the public from the kind of 'silly' enforcements that some have been guilty of.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: alanabit
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 03:52 PM

Fair enough. But am I the only one who resents having to pick up other people's litter when my kids go to the park, having to remove their left over food from buses or having to watch out for some other bastard's chewing gum when I sit down in a public place? It's a typical piece of eye catching New Labour/Conservative propoganda - an mixture of the good, the bad and opportunistic vote catching.

Subject: RE: Outlawing buskers?
From: GUEST,Busker
Date: 04 Nov 02 - 05:25 PM

I will just have to sell The Big Issue to earn a crust now.