I have busked in at least 20 countries and never have I faced so many rules and regulations as I did when I started to busk in Santa Monica yesterday. I almost got two tickets.
I decided recently to get back in to busking, so I went and got my permit from Santa Monica City Hall to play on the 3rd Street Promenade, the large foot traffic shopping area near the ocean in Santa Monica. For some reason that takes 3 days to process even though they just give you back a laminated sheet of paper with your photo and permit number on it. Maybe they were sending my info to the Department of Fatherland Security, I don’t know. It also costs $37 and is only good for the year you purchase it, so if you get one in December, you still have to get another one in January if you want to keep playing there.
So while I’m waiting for my permit to be processed I go down to scope out the area and talk to some of the performers and do a little reconnaissance. The rotation they have going seems pretty simple and the weather has been good so I figured it would be fairly hassle free. Wrong wrong wrong.
This week I went and picked up my permit and the rulebook from city hall. Rulebook?! I’ve played in many many cities and never have I been given a rulebook, and it almost truly is a book. So I give it a read through and although there are a lot of specifics it all seems pretty straightforward.
Unfortunately when I finally collected my guitar and gear and went down to play, it seems I missed a couple of rules. I had a little CD rack with about 20 CDs in it. A cop came by and was going to write a ticket because I’m only allowed to display 5 CDs. Fortunately I was able to talk my way out of that ticket. A few minutes later a cop came by to give me a ticket because I didn’t have my permit “properly” displayed. I’m not sure why the previous cop didn’t catch that, but again fortunately I was able to convince him that giving me a ticket was just silly so I dodged another ticket. Another performer saw all this and assumed I got the tickets because they have a zero tolerance policy to breaking any of the rules. Jedi Mind Tricks are sometimes very useful.
Anyway, overall I had a good time. Sold a few CDs, got some tips, met some nice folks who liked the music. I’ll be back again in a day or two, but I’m going to spend some more time with the rulebook before I do.