a walk in the park_ new park _vendor_ rules won't affect performers - city

7/30/2019 A Walk in the Park_ New Park _Vendor_ Rules Won't Affect Performers - City

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5/10/13 A Walk in the Park: New Park "Vendor" Rules Won't Affect Performers - City. Commish Lies Over Responsibility For 2011 Crack-Down

awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com/2013/05/new-park-vendor-rules-wont-affect.html

people scratching their heads in confusion. (Photos: Geoffrey Croft/NYC Park Adovocates) Click on images to enlarge

Castro blamed the 20 11 summons crackdown against performers and musicians on a single PEP officer, an a ssertion vehemently denied

by those involved. The ticket blitz generated a pu blic outcry and considerable media attention.

The revised park rules for performers and musicians go into effect on May 8th. There are two PEP officers and one supervisor assigned to

cover 59th Street to the Ba ttery in Manhattan.

Manhattan

By Geoffrey Croft

The Parks Department spent last week backpedaling from its 2011 ticket-blitz on musicians and performers in

Washington Square Park, pinning the blame on one overzealous Parks Enforcement Patrol officer yet it

refused to reverse the rule changes that led to the crackdown, and in fact added more restrictive language.

Confusion and disbelief reigned at a meeting of Manhattan Community Board 2s Parks Committee, as a senior

Parks official vowed the new rules, which go into effect May 8, wont stop musicians and other performers from

playing in Washington Square Park.

The City is attempting to classify performers and musicians "providing entertainment" who solicit donations in

parks as "vendors" under new rules adopted by the agency.

On April 2, the department quietly held a public meeting that finalized the changes.

The new rule is aimed at controlling revenue production in parks, and cracking down on long-protected rightscritics say, and violators face fines of up to $250 for a first offense and up to $1,000 thereafter.

According to Parks however, the purpose of the new rules is to "clarify the Departments original intent that

individuals providing entertainment, such as musical performances, juggling, dance, or other performance arts

in exchange for a fee or for a donation are considered vendors.

2. Section 1-05(b) of Title 56 of the Official Compilation of the Rules of the City of New York has now beenamended to read as follows: "No person in or on any property under the jurisdiction of the Department shallsell, offer for sale, hire, lease or let anything whatsoever, including, but not limited to goods, services, orentertainment, or provide or offer to provide services or items, or entertainment in exchange for a donation(hereinafter vend), except under and within the terms of a permit, or except as otherwise provided by law.Steven Goulden, acting corporation counsel in the city's Law Department, signed this amendment dated

December 28, 2012. On January 29, 2013 Hunter Gradie from the Mayors Office of Operations, analyzed the

proposed rule Pursuant to Charter section 1043(d).

In 2011, st reet performers were aggressively targeted by the Bloomberg administration under the new rules

prohibition against collecting donations near landmarks or monuments in parks under the Parks Department's

Expressive Matter vending rules. PEP officers were instructed to ticket performers and musicians for unlawful

vending and unlawful assembly. Several performers were threatened with arrest.

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Joe Mangrum making one of his signature sand creations in Washington Square Park on Friday. During the initiative in 2011 he received

six tickets over several weeks, five in Washington Squ are Park and o ne in Union Squa re Park totaling $4,750 in fines.

On Thursday April 25th, DEP employees accompanied by a captain and p lain clothes officers from the 6th Pct, and Parks Department

personnel surveyed the noise conditions created by musicians playing in Union Square Park. It was was quiet according to city sources.

"The park is for everyone, for the general public, not for (a performer) whose sole purpose is making money,"

William Castro told the Daily News in 2011. He was referring to the street performance group Tic & Tac, who

had been doing shows in Washington Square Park for more than 25 years.

Public outcry forced the city to eventually back down. Legal action was threatened but not before PEP officers

wrote dozens of tickets. Within weeks of a December 2011 press conferenceheld in Washington Square Park

to denounce the crackdown, the city agreed to dismiss all summonses.Many of the performers and musicians

who attended the news conference, organized by NYC Park Advocates with attorneys Norman Siegel and Ron

Kuby, spoke of being harassed, some since the spring.

In a highly controversial move earlier that year, the c ity had attempted to prohibit performing near Central

Park's Bethesda fountain as well. A legally blind a cappella singer was threatened with arrest after the singer

received multiple summonses.

However in a 180-degree turn at last weeks meeting Manhattan Borough Parks Commissioner Castro claimed

performers would in fact be allowed to do many of the things they had previously been ticketed for in 2011.

Castro insisted nothing will change. This "slight adjustment to the rules," he said, is not going to affect the

musicians to come to the park to play."

Most people at Wednesday's meeting understood Mr. Castro's explanation as the city was not going to enforcethe rules that the Parks Department just passed. And Mr. Castro's assurances did little to allay the fears ofmany in the audience.

"It can be confusing, I understand that," he said.

"It's gotten some attention through confusion, which we understand."

"If you come to play music, the guys and gals who sit on the benches who play, they sit on the grass,wherever, they stand right by the Garibaldi statue and play all those places, the piano you can play underthe arch, you're fine," Castro explained.

"You dont need a permit. You are not going to be told to leave the park. You're not going to get a ticket. You'refine. You can do that that's not going to change. You don't have to be x feet away from this or that or any of

Materials

Highlighting another

Sustainable Park: Canal Park,

Washington DC
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that jazz you don't have to do that.

If you're putting the hat out and your case is open and people traditionally put money into it, you're fine. That'snot a problem at all," Castro said.

He also stressed that performers were allowed to sell CDs without a permit, as long as they didn't have adisplay stand that people could trip over.

Castro said the rule change had nothing to do with Washington Square Park in mind though the distancerestrictions would effectively put the park off-limits. "It's not because Washington Square was a problem, andwe wrote this change or something," he said.

On December 19, 2011, Community Board 2 had convened a very well attended meeting where not a s ingleperson spoke in favor of the Parks Department's crackdown on performers, except for Castro. At the time he

claimed the new rules were not meant to ban performers from soliciting donations.

So why have the new rule then? Community Board members asked Castro to explain why the 2011 crackdownoccurredand who was responsible.

Following the well-worn path created by his ex-boss, f ormer Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Castro wouldnot accept responsibility for the screw-up and instead offered an elaborate explanation that obfuscated thereality.

"I think it would be helpful to clarify what happened then," said former Parks Committee chair and formerParks Department employee Tobi Bergman.

"Someone went off basically and enforced the strict letter of the law or whatever it's not even clear to me. It'sbeen a few years, and I'd have to go back and take a look at it," Castro replied.

"Who was this somebody?" another board member asked. "Was it a PEP officer or . . . "

"A PEP officer, a PEP officer, yes, that's right," he said.

Instead of answering the question honestly, Castro portrayed the campaign by several city agencies againstexpressive matter vendors" as the actions of a lone rogue PEP officer. Yet at the time, Parks Departmentpersonnel were working with the NYPD's 6th Precinct, according to several Parks employees intimately awareof the operation.

They say the crackdown had been sanctioned by then Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe with thedepartments General Counsel, Alessandro Olivieri, and it was implemented by multiple Parks officials,including Castro and senior Park Enforcement Patrol personel Mike Docket and Raymond Brown as well asPEP Inspector Robert Reeves, Deputy Inspector Edwin Rodriguez, and others all of whom personally wentdown to Washington Square Park to supervise and survey the situation at various times during the initiative.

"Those orders came from them, not from us," said a PEP officer familiar with the plan who spoke on thecondition of anonymity for fear of retribution. "They tried everything to get these guys, but nothing would stick.(The tickets) kept getting thrown out in court."

Another option discussed in meetings with the NYPD would use the citys noise ordinance against performers."They talked about getting an audio meter to measure the noise levels, but they never came through with it,said the PEP officer.

"It's much easier to throw green shifts under the bus than to take responsibly yourself, said another officer,

referring to the uniform worn by PEP officers.

Other sources point out the crackdown came during Occupy Wall Street, when the city was operating onheightened security and responded in a knee-jerk reaction.

"Our officers had absolutely nothing to do with initiating this," said Joe Puleo, vice president of DC37's Local987, which represents PEP officers. "They did what they were instructed to do and did so reluctantly. Theywere uncomfortable. Many felt they were violating these people's rights."

Instead of directing resources to prevent crime at a time when PEP head count was at record lows and crimein parks was rising Puleo said, the Bloomberg administration choose to make stopping performers a priority."These orders came through management and the administration," he said. "They thought they were inGiuliani mode."

During the 2011 crackdown, pianist Colin Huggins was issued nine tickets by several different officers forplaying classical music in Washington Square Park. "It felt like he was trying to cover something up," Hugginssaid, contesting Castro's version of events. "Did he think anyone would believe that this was done by oneofficer?"

Huggins was one of the musicians threatened with arrest. He was approached near the park's fountain by RayBrown, whom he described as supervising the initiative.

"He was calling my piano my 'art stand.' He showed me an illustration of a foldout table for vending and saidthe piano was the same thing. It was ridiculous. We went back and forth, and finally he said, 'You know therules. He said, If you don't leave now, we're going to arrest you, and no one likes to get arrested."

Huggins said that after a while the issuing of summonses was so routine "it got to the point where it was like,Here's your ticket for the day. They would slip it under my sheet music so as not to interrupt my playing. Theofficers giving the tickets themselves were very nice."
http://awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com/2011/12/bloomberg-cracks-down-on-performers-in.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm0ZRkOx06Ehttp://awalkintheparknyc.blogspot.com/2011/12/crowd-denounces-parks-dept-washington.html


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Posted by A Walk in the Park at 1:47 AM

Ray Brown was upset to see Huggins playing under the Washington Square Park arch. "He didn't like that,"according to a Parks Department source.

Artist Joe Mangrum has been working in the park for years.

"The rules that I saw that were passed on April 2nd include any exchange of money is considered vending andthat no vending can be done within fifty-feet of a monument, no vending can be done within so many feet (5feet) of a bench, which basically makes it impossible to do any of what you just said in Washington Square,"Mr. Mangrum said addressing Castro at the Community Board meeting.

"Then you're confusing the issue because that's what is written, that's what's written in the rules, and you justcontradicted everything in that in what you just said," he said.

Mangrum, who lugs 60 pounds of sand from Brooklyn to create his brightly colored designs on the ground, said

he had been issued six summonses by at least three different PEP officers over two months in 2011. Fivetickets were issued in Washington Square Park and one in Union Square Park, totaling $4,750 in fines.

"It was an Oscar-worthy performance," Mangrum said afterwards, noting Castro's lack of candor. "He threwPEP under the bus and took no responsibly for who was behind it."

In December, 2011, Kareen Barnes, a member of the group Tic & Tac, said he had been slapped with nearly$10,000 in summonses in two months -- but an Environmental Control Board judge dismissed all the fines afterhe argued his Constitutional rights had been violated. He said they city has given him and his brother dozensof tickets over the years, and all of the tickets have been thrown out in court.

State Assembly member Deborah Glick's chief of staff, Matt Borden, echoed the feeling of the crowd when hesaid that relying on one commissioners word wasn't in the best interest of the public, when the rules saysomething very different.

The next Parks Commissioner, if they dont have the same ethos as you folks, you might have to fight thisfight again.

He said something more binding and concrete should be adopted to reflect what Castro was representing.Several members of t he Community Board recommended the same thing.

Read More:

Amidst Confusion, Community and Performers to Citys Parks Department: Commit in Writing NoPerformance Crackdown at Washington Square, and all NYC ParksWashington Square Blog- May 2, 2013

Labels: Adrian Benepe, Bill Castro, Deborah Glick, PEP

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a walk in the park_ new park _vendor_ rules won't affect performers - city

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