The Chicago City Council met on July 18 to discuss the implementation of a new ordinance that would require all “event promoters” to purchase an operating permit at a cost that opponents argued would keep many industry professionals from operating at all.
The new regulation, which has yet to be voted on, requires that anyone in the business of promoting events wherein patrons are charged at the door is responsible for paying a biannual $2000 fee. Promoters would also be responsible for proving liability insurance at “no less than $1,000,000 per occurrence, for bodily injury and property damage arising in any way from the issuance of the license.” Director of City Affairs and Licensing, Scott Bruner, urged that such a bill is called for in light of the E2 Nightclub tragedy in 2003 that resulted in the deaths of twenty-one dance-hall patrons.
6th Ward Alderman Freddrenna Lyle expressed concern over the broad scope of the bill and suggested that the committee may be using a “shotgun approach to kill an ant.” While aimed at curbing injuries and violence at large-scale concerts and parties, she argued that the bill’s unintended victims might stand to be non-profits, churches, arts organizations, and small-scale venues that cannot afford to pay the large fees.
Well over a hundred opponents to the bill showed up to testify on behalf of various organizations, forcing the meeting to reconvene in the larger City Hall Chambers. Dissenters represented a wide range of age, careers and backgrounds, but united civilly behind what seemed to be a unanimous concern for art and independent business.
“Over the last three years, Chicago has undergone a cultural renaissance,” testified John Mitchell of Conscious Choice magazine. “We do not want Chicago to be known as being unfriendly to youth culture…I love this city, and the last thing I’d want to tell anybody is that I’d have to leave it because I can’t do my thing here anymore.”
Many testified that the artists who bring up the property values in struggling parts of the city simply couldn’t afford to pay fees targeted at large-scale operations. While the proponents of the bill on Council represented event promotion as a giant industry, attendees in the promotion business described their work in the entertainment sector as low profit and often-supplementary income.
Other attendees argued that extensive screening required to obtain the proposed license is overly strict. The application would involve a criminal background check, fingerprinting, and the submission of a working cell phone number by which the applicant can be reached at all times during an event or face a fine. These and other lengthy stipulations were cited to be more stringent than the current applications for ambulance, day care provider, and weapons-dealers licenses.
29th Ward Alderman Isaac Carothers expressed dismay over a stipulation that applicants, including current event promoters, who have a felony of any type on record would be barred from working in the industry for five years after their conviction. In an already difficult job market for rehabilitated convicts, he said, it seems harsh to tell workers that they have to abandon their jobs in the fields of art and entertainment. Carothers also went on record challenging the police department to come up with hard numbers that connect art and music events to street crime.
Scott Bruner assured that he does not aim to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” in the implementation of the proposed licensing. He did, however, lament that “the biggest challenge [in drafting this bill] has been trying to define what a promoter is.” He also stated that he has no idea how many promoters are in the city and cannot know until they are all called forward for screening.
Attendee Paul Naken testified in response to Bruner’s comments by predicting that this forced roll call may cause those who cannot afford or are ineligible for licenses to revert to illegitimate underground venues. In reference to Freddrenna Lyles’s earlier analogy, he said, “the ants are just going to go underground.”
VJ Mason Dixon summed up the tension of the room by appealing to the council that the proposal disenfranchises musicians, advertisers, producers, designers, and countless other professions that might accidentally fall within the scope of the bill. “We lure people to Chicago by saying that we are a fun city,” he said. “This ordinance is killing the fun.”