The mayor of Kamloops is addressing an uproar over a proposal to charge a licensing fee for buskers downtown.
Ken Christian stresses this is not a matter before council at the moment it is a proposal made in a city committee.
“Lets be clear about a few things. We are not interested in taxing and grabbing money from street performers that is not what this is about. We in fact support busking and we are proud to host the 2nd annual Buskers Festival here in Kamloops. We look at busking as a way for emerging artists to have a venue to ply their trade and get better. That is really the motivation behind what they were proposing.”
That said Christian adds there is a panhandling problem downtown and this may be one way of addressing it.
“There is a very fine line between busking and panhandling. People that are out in front of your business in July singing Jingle Bells really are not necessarily street performers. I think what staff was trying to do was have a way to adjudicate legitimate buskers and doing that through the Art Council than making sure that panhandling was going to comply with existing regulations.”
As for the reaction from the Kamloops Central Business Improvement Association calling the idea silly and demanding it be dropped.
“If the KCBIA is not interested in having our streets safer well then that is a discussion we have to have. Certainly that is the motivation behind what was proposed.”
Christian says the finer details of how to keep panhandlers moving along will be worked out before, or if, the proposal is ever tabled at Council.