New street performer permit requirements, ordinance modifications and more staffing positions in the future for Long Beach?
These were all listed as recommendations as part of a street-performer study that was requested by Long Beach City Council to further encourage street performers citywide.
The study was requested in June 2017 due to a lack of consistency in the Long Beach Municipal Code regarding street performers, leading to inconsistent enforcement and discouragement.
The goal of the study was to be able to create guidelines for performers while also being mindful of the needs of residents, businesses and the performers themselves.
According to the report, on Aug. 9, 2017, City staff from the Office of Special Events and the police and fire departments met with the Long Beach Council of Business Associations and members of the Downtown Long Beach Business Alliance (DLBA), and other business owners from the city, to discuss suggestions for the creation of a Street Performer Program.
City staff also met with members of the Long Beach Music Council, a community-based organization, whose mission is to make Long Beach a music-friendly destination, according to their website.
To further gain an understanding of street performer regulations, City staff also studied other musically-affluent cities and how they manage their own street performers including Santa Monica; San Francisco; New Orleans, LA; Austin, TX; and Seattle, WA.
This ultimately led the City to launch a Street Performer Pilot Program in the summer of 2018, which lasted a little over a year, until the end of summer 2019.
Based on their findings from the pilot program and after analyzing how other cities managed their street performers, City staff concluded that new administrative and enforcement components had to be implemented.
These new recommendations include the implementation of a Street Performer Permit and modifying the current Long Beach Municipal Codes regarding street performers, to alter the time allotted for street performances to be from 10am to 10pm.
Like the pilot program, staff recommends that this new Long Beach Street Performer Program begin in the downtown waterfront area. Given that it’s a smaller, more controlled space, it will allow participants and the City to ease into the program, establishing street performer areas, or “busk stops,” as the study refers to them, and make the appropriate adjustments as they see fit, according to the report.
Staff estimates that a citywide implementation of the program could take two years to be implemented.
The framework for the program, which includes creating permit application templates, designing the permit, creating a citation system, and corresponding database will take approximately 12 months, according to the study. The report also states that additional staff will be needed as the program expands.
The estimated annual costs for the program will total up to $173,500, which includes $166,500 for staffing positions and $7,000 for technology.
In addition, there will be a one-time cost of $13,261 for a license maker and a yet-to-be-determined cost for implementation of a database.
The revenue from the program is still difficult to determine because the number of street performers Long Beach will have during its initial phase is currently unknown.
The study uses Santa Monica’s Street Performer Program as a reference point, citing that if Long Beach adopted a permit fee of $37 like Santa Monica, it would not be enough to recover the City’s annual estimated cost of $173,000.
Long Beach would need to issue 4,700 permits annually to recover their costs, which according to their memo, is not feasible.
Instead, City staff recommends charging a $100 annual fee for a Street Performer Permit, however, even at that amount, the City would only recover a portion of the overall cost.
The city council will decide on the recommendation at a later date.
