One-Man Street Bands To Be Regulated?

Earlier this week, a street musician settled with the city for $27,500. Felix Wilkins, 66, was arrested for playing his flute last March, and, whoops, music is legal. As the Associated Press puts it: “The agreement requires the city to inform police that playing, singing, and soliciting money in a public place are protected by the First Amendment.”

Yesterday, the Inquirer asked: Well, should we regulate street musicians? People tend to like street musicians in downtown areas, even if they suck, Lea Sitton Stanley reported, so the answer’s no, right?

The Center City District’s Paul Levy, who we last saw suing another state’s Restaurant Week, says the new mayor should regulate street musicians for quality. It happens in Paris and New York!

Levy holds that the time has come for Philadelphia to elevate its standards.

“As a city, we’ve been dramatically transformed in the last decade,” Levy said. “We should take the opportunity of a new mayor coming in to look at the policy.”

After the Inquirer quotes the mayor, we get this awesome quote from our own Boy Scout hatin’ city solicitor, Romulo Diaz:

Under an ordinance dating to 1897, no one may “play a hand organ or other musical instrument” between 10 p.m. and 9 a.m., near a hospital, or in front of a school during class or a place of worship during services.

Quality, however, is not regulated. “That would require an ordinance of City Council,” Diaz said. “We haven’t really looked at it because, frankly, I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”

Can we regulate the people who hand out religious tracts for quality, too? I don’t see how it’s any different. The Scientology people are boring. The Black Israelites are super interesting. You get cartoons from Jews for Jesus — or, even better, Jack Chick. I only want entertaining religious people. Get on that, Paul Levy.