Over a year ago, I made a post about how badly Houston sucks. One thing I didn’t mention is that busking for tips is illegal in Houston. Or it was until this week. Being a street musician or performer could get you arrested—or fined, at least. Houston is a city infamously hostile to pedestrians—mostly because it is hard for pedestrians to get anywhere on foot. (And it is a million fucking degrees for a large part of the year.) But beyond that, Houston has never made it psychically easy for pedestrians. The things that make street life enjoyable for walkers are mostly absent in Houston—street-level businesses not separated from the sidewalk by a parking lot (due to our inane minimum parking regulations), the kind of places you would expect to find on a street in a pedestrian-friendly city (dry cleaners, convenience stores, neighborhood bars and coffee shops, etc.) My favorite urbanist YouTube channel, CityNerd, had an episode about “lifestyle centers”—fake pedestrian-friendly, urbanist environments that aggressively anti-pedestrian cities host as a kind of substitute for the urban experience; an experience that is pretty much illegal in many American cities.
One aspect of pedestrian-oriented urban life that makes that life more pleasant is the presence of musicians and performers on the sidewalks and in the plazas. This is a civilized activity that was inexplicably banned in Houston for decades. A Houston accordionist, Anthony Barilla, sued the city in 2020 to have this law overturned. In 2018, he wrote an article for The Houston Press explaining his reasoning. He wrote:
The local regulations governing buskers can be found in Chapters 28 and 40 of Houston's Code of Ordinances, where street performers of all type are mostly banned, and musicians are unfortunately categorized as a nuisance, along with gasoline siphons, ditches, barbed wire, uncovered cisterns, and pimps.
Section 28.6 of the municipal code lays it out:
The playing of bands upon the streets or in other public places in the city, with a view to taking up a collection from the bystanders by someone, for the benefit of the members composing such band, shall be a nuisance and unlawful. Every member of such a band who plays with a view to taking up or having taken up a collection from the bystanders shall be guilty of committing a nuisance; provided, however, this section shall not be construed to apply to religious organizations that conduct their services in the streets or in other public places or to sidewalk performers performing within the "theater/entertainment district" defined in section 40-261 of this Code pursuant to a permit issued under article XI of chapter 40 of this Code.
After two years, the U.S. District Judge Alfred H. Bennett struck down the law, and the city apparently does not plan to appeal it. So all you semi-amateur violinists and cellists and guitarists, get out there and play! I recommend Midtown as a good street venue.
I hope I will soon get a chance to reproduce my own photos taken of musicians in Houston doing what this cellist did in Bogata. Shepherd School and Moores School students, I want to see you out on the street soon!
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