At a regular City Council meeting on August, 28 Council was approached by a concerned resident, Myrna Jensen, after out of town buskers were allegedly threatened with fines after playing in the Platzl last week.
As the by law currently stands, buskers require a permit to play in a public space, as is required in many other Cities.
Jensen says that these, and other buskers, bring people into Kimberley and the Platzl and therefore should not be penalized for busking.
“There should be some sort of way of giving these individuals a letter of forgiveness or exemption [from the by law],” Jensen said.
“We did have this discussion around buskers quite some time ago,” said Kimberley Mayor Don McCormick. “I thought the discussion brought the Chamber of Commerce into this. It’s quite an old by law that essentially requires buskers to have a business license.”
McCormick says the $150 permit fee isn’t realistic for those who are busking in the Platzl for one or two days, or even a week and the City will review the by law some time in the near future.
City Chief Administrative Officer, Scott Sommerville said, “we had the chamber come in 2015 and give a presentation to us. We were supposed to go away and come up with some amendments [to the bylaw] to allow for busking. We discovered last week that it had somehow fallen through the cracks.”
Jensen explained that the buskers were, “threatened with a ticket”, to which McCormick replied by saying that the by law officer was simply doing her job.