New Ordinance Protects Street Performers in Somerville

A new ordinance, approved by the Somerville Board of Aldermen Thursday, affirms the rights of musicians, jugglers, magicians, actors, dancers and other artists to conduct street performances in the city.

The ordinance passed after spending nearly seven months in the Board of Aldermen's Legislative Matters Committee.

Ward 6 Alderman Rebekah Gewirtz, who sponsored the new ordinance, had expressed concern that the previous ordinance governing street performances, which "was put on the books many years ago," was outdated and possibly in violation of First Amendment rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.

The old ordinance said,

No meeting shall be held and no person shall deliver a sermon, lecture, address or discourse, or shall sing or play or perform on any musical instrument, in a street or other public place, except in connection with a funeral or a military parade, and except in connection with a procession of a political, civic or charitable organization for which a police escort is provided by the chief of police, unless licensed thereto by the board of aldermen, as hereinafter set forth.

The problem, according to Gewirtz, was the city didn't issue any licenses or permits to street performers.

Roger Nicholson, a musician, said, "I was shut down on several occasions" by police in Davis Square.

Speaking Thursday after the new ordinance was approved, he said he was pleased with the new law.

He alleged he was regularly harassed by police officers and told he would be arrested for disorderly conduct and have his instrument and belongings declared "abandoned property" if he didn't stop performing. Nicholson said police told him he needed a permit to perform, but when he went to the city clerk's office the clerk said the city didn't issue such permits.

One officer told him, "What you're doing is criminal," Nicholson said, adding the new ordinance "affirms that that officer is no longer correct."

Now, "An officer can't come up to me and tell me I don't have a permit and you cannot play," he said.

The introduction to the new ordinance says,

The Board of Aldermen finds that the existence in the City of Somerville of street performers provides a public benefit that enhances the character of the City and seeks to encourage such performances to the extent they do not interfere with the reasonable expectations or residents to the enjoyment of peace and quiet in their homes or to the ability of businesses to conduct their business without interruption.

"It specifically does not require a permit," Gewirtz said of the new ordinance.

Nicholson said the timing of the new ordinance's passage was good because spring was here, heralding the beginning of outdoor street performance season.

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