2/13/98
by Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. (Artists' Response To Illegal State Tactics).
provided through OPENAIR-MARKET NET
Parks Department Increases Attacks On Artists' Rights. Continuing his plan to privatize every square inch of public property in New York, on 2/11/98 Mayor Giuliani turned the management of Central Park over to the Central Park Conservancy, an elite group of vendor-hating multi-millionaires. Simultaneously, the artists who show their work in front of the Metropolitan Museum were notified that, beginning March 1, they would be required to obtain a Parks Department artist permit for one of only twenty 'Met' spots, each of which will measure 6 feet. According to the Parks Department, which plans to ignore the Federal court ruling in the street artist case, artists who set up without the license will be arrested and their art will be confiscated. Central Park, welcome to Giuliani's Police State.
City Council Proposes New Vending Ordinance. Simultaneously with the Parks Department's announcements, a new bill was submitted to the City Council proposing to require all vendors to obtain a license, a permit and a warrant. [Street artists will only be required to obtain a permit and a warrant.] The license allows operation of a business; the permit allows use of a display or stand approved by the City; the warrant allows setting up in an actual location on the street. The total one-year cost for the three documents would be approximately three to five hundred dollars. Only one (1) vendor will be warranted to sell on each unrestricted block. The City will decide which vendor or artist is given the warrant for each block. Once the artist or vendor is found guilty of two violations of the vending ordinance rules in one year they will lose their license, permit and warrant.
Warranting is intended to eventually turn all street vending into a concession system with vending locations going to the highest bidder. Once that's done, today's food carts will be replaced by McDonald's carts; independent newspaper stands will be replaced by stands owned by the Times, the Post and the Daily News; street artists will be replaced by kiosks owned by galleries; general vendors will be replaced by Disney souvenir stands. Traditional independent vending will be finished.
What About the Street Artist Court Case That We Won? While the new ordinance does exempt artists from the license, the permit and warrant requirements are simply another version of a license. The Mayor and the Business Improvement Districts (B.I.D.s) that initiated the street artist arrests in 1993 do not respect the Federal Courts, the First Amendment or the U.S. Constitution. They have been pushing the City to find a way around our court decision since the day it was written. They are also behind the war on veteran, food and general vendors.
The City's Legal Strategy. The proposed new vending ordinance has been constructed by lawyers working for both the B.I.D.s and the City so that it has a chance of standing up in court if artists bring another lawsuit. The newly proposed ordinance allows First Amendment protected artists and book vendors to sell anywhere, without a license, permit or warrant (including on restricted streets) so long as they hold the art or books in their hands and do not use a fixed display of any kind. This is to allow the City to falsely claim in court that First Amendment rights are not being restricted, only the right to use a table or other display, which will be presented as a "public safety" issue.
Artists, and the City's thousands of vendors, have three options to consider: [A,B,C] in response to this news.
Option A: Do nothing, hope for the best This is what some artists and vendors might prefer and is exactly what the City hopes we will all do. If we do nothing they will pass the new ordinance and prepare to arrest hundreds of artists and vendors and confiscate their property. The Met artists will be forced into a lottery for the 20 permits which the Parks Department will eventually turn into concessions, thereby allowing them to make artists bid for their spot. If the food carts in front of the Met are any indication (the winning bid for that spot is over two hundred thousand dollars now) none of the present Met artists will be able to afford to sell there next year. Concessions are the opposite of First Amendment freedom.
Option B: File a Lawsuit, Let the Lawyers Do Everything We can get lawyers to seek Injunctions preventing the City and the Parks Department from putting the new regulations into effect. If we get one or more Injunctions, the new rules will be suspended until the court cases are finished. If we lose the court case the new rules will immediately go into effect. If we win one or more of these cases, which may take years, the City's and the B.I.D.'s lawyers will just try to find another way to restrict us.
Option C: Political Action. File Lawsuits, Demonstrate, Defy the New Rules, Refuse to Apply for A Permit, License Or Warrant and Continue To Practice Non-Violent Civil Disobedience in Order to Stand Up For Our Rights
Options A and B are easy. They avoid personal investment, responsibility or risk. Unfortunately, A and B will most likely result in the end of vending. Option C involves an investment of our time and effort and facing the risk of summonses or arrest.
The thing that most distinguishes Option C from Options A or B is that it has been proven to work. For four years A.R.T.I.S.T. members stood their ground against constant police harassment, arrests, confiscations and criminal court cases. Long before our court case was won we had brought the City's artist arrest policy to a standstill. We succeeded in generating hundreds of newspaper articles, television and radio pieces resulting in international attention to our cause and embarrassment for the City, the Mayor and the B.I.D.s. To win the next stage of the fight we need to continue these activities on an even larger scale.
The battle ahead can only be won if each artist and vendor makes a personal commitment to see this effort through to completion. There is really only one choice in this matter. To give up being a street artist or vendor or to fight on for our rights.
Working together, we can defeat the City's policy and preserve vending in New York City for generations to come. The choice is ours. The battle is approaching. The time to fight back is NOW!
Copy This Leaflet and Give It To Every Vendor You Know!
For more info, contact: A.R.T.I.S.T. Ph: (718) 369-2111 or (212) 561-0877; Email <ARTISTpres@aol.com>; Web site http://www.openair.org/alerts/artist/nyc.html