A Chicago City Council committee has moved to renew regulations on Chicago street performers and musicians after downtown workers and residents complained that the assorted drums, guitars and voices are more torture than treasure.
Members of the Committee on Streets and Alleys heard more than two hours of testimony last week at a hearing called to prepare an ordinance reviving a 1983 law that was allowed to expire in 1986 after a federal judge struck down some of its provisions.
A new ordinance will be drafted for the committee in the next two months, Ald. Burton Natarus (42d) said after hearing the complaints.
”There`s a woman drummer who wears leather sawed-off gloves who makes a crack that`s like a direct blow to my brain,” said attorney John Hirsch, whose 16th-floor offices are at 25 E. Washington St.
”It interrupts the TV, you can`t sleep, if you try to write a letter, you can`t concentrate,” said Cathryn Tkach, who lives along Michigan Avenue. ”After a few hours, you feel like you want someone to cart you away.”
George Banks, a drummer who said he often played with a rock group on the subway platform at Dearborn and Washington Streets, agreed the city should press street performers to respect their neighbors. ”The music should not be disturbing to people in their homes,” said Banks, who toted a leather pouch with six drumsticks. ”We just don`t want to be overregulated.”
In a letter to the committee, the Greater State Street Council asked for strict curbs that would prohibit musicians from begging or going barefoot and would provide performance standards to weed out musicians who have no talent. But Ald. Bernard Stone (50th) indicated that might be going too far. ”We have cabdrivers who don`t get auditioned about the quality of how they drive,” he said. ”Yet we want to audition these people?”
The council approved an ordinance in 1983 that restricted where and when musicians could perform. But U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Aspen struck down several provisions of that law, including restraints on the use of amplifiers. The council allowed the ordinance to expire several months later in March, 1986.
But continued complaints about noise have prompted aldermen to revive the issue, Natarus said.
