Monday, July 07, 2014

"Authenticity" Returns to St. Augustine, Florida---Musicians, artists head back on St. George Street thanks to SCOTUS

For decades, the 1% targeted street musicians, artists and entertainers for abusive criminal laws found unconstitutional by our federal courts. Their latest ordinance will dissolve, as the Supreme Court's unanimous June 26, 2014 decision in McCulloch v. Coakley holds that even a law passed as "content neutral" must be "narrowly tailored" to pass muster under the First Amendment.
Banning all performances from four blocks of St. George Street, and from surrounding streets, is not narrowly tailored (any more than banning pedestrians from 35 feet from abortion clinic entrances, found unconstitutional by 9-0 Supreme Court decision).
I wrote the City about this the day of the SCOTUS decision.
The morning after, I spoke to City Manager John Patrick Regan, P.E.
We expect that the City of St. Augustine will no longer enforce its unconstitutional artist and musician suppression ordinances, on St. George Street or anywhere else.
Surveys by the St. Johns County Tourist Development Council indicate that our visitors miss "authenticity."
Translation: they want history, not mindless tacky mercantilism.
For hundreds of years, musicians played here.
Ask our visitors.
Ask our residents.
We want our musicians back!
We want our artists back!
We want our entertainers back!
We want our buskers back!
Now.
No one enjoys St. George Street in its present perverse manifestation, dominated by tacky t-shirt shops selling inauthentic gimcracks.
Kindly respect our Civil Rights everywhere in St. Augustine, every day, not just once every year (or every 50 years), please.
Let freedom ring!
Thank you!

2 comments:

Jim O said...

So do we play on St. George and risk arrest or do we wait for a public statement?

Jim Olds said...

So who will be the first to try playing on St. George and be frog marched to the station like the old days with the artists and performers.