OCEAN CITY — A tweaked ordinance regulating street performers on the Boardwalk moved closer to becoming the new norm this week when the Mayor and Council approved it on first reading, but it likely won’t be the last revision.
After a rather tumultuous season under a new ordinance last summer, city officials went back to the drawing board throughout the winter to come up with a plan to alleviate some of the concerns and level the playing field for the buskers. Among other issues, an unintended side effect of last summer’s ordinance had street performers camping out in front of City Hall each week to sign up for one of the coveted approved spaces on the Boardwalk in a first come, first served basis.
Earlier this month, the Mayor and Council accepted the task force recommendations after adding a few revisions of its own. On Monday, the city’s elected officials approved the new and improved busker ordinance on first reading.
One significant change is the process by which the buskers are assigned spaces on the Boardwalk. The new ordinance includes a lottery system whereby performers would sign up a week in advance in two separate drawings. One lottery will allocate the Boardwalk spots from Monday to Thursday, while the second would allocate the spots from Thursday to Sunday.
The intent is to level the playing field and provide all street performers with an opportunity to land the coveted spots on the Boardwalk from 9th Street south. Essentially, the lottery system is expected to replace last year’s registration process that had buskers camping out in front of City Hall.
Within the larger lottery system is a smaller lottery of sorts that will separate the larger street performer spots on the Boardwalk from the smaller ones. The larger 10-foot by 10-foot spots would be offered in the lottery first to those performers who need more space, followed by a lottery for the smaller five-foot by five-foot spaces. Any of the larger 10-foot spaces not taken during the initial lottery will be folded back into the second lottery.
Differentiating the larger spots from the smaller spots continued to cause heartburn for at least one councilmember this week. When the task force presented its recommendations earlier this month, Councilman Dennis Dare did not support some of the changes, particularly the separate lotteries for the different sized spaces.
Dare believes the separation will put City Clerk Diana Chavis in the tough position of deciding which performers qualify for the large spots. On Monday, Dare again reiterated his concerns about the separate lotteries.
“I voted against this at the work session and I still have two issues,” he said. “This includes two lotteries, one for the 10 by 10 spaces and everybody else in the second. I think that puts the staff in the position to make subjective decisions.”
The task force also recommended several changes in terms of the time of year the ordinance is in place and the daily hours of operation, for example. The task force recommended the ordinance be enforced from May 1 to Sept. 30. After considerable debate, a compromise was reached, setting the enforcement schedule from May 1 to Sept. 15. However, earlier this month Dare pushed for an even more relaxed schedule from Memorial Day to Labor Day and actually voted against approving the recommendations in large part because of that issue.
“We’re regulating this five months out of the year,” he said. “If we went from Memorial Day to Labor Day, it would only be three months. I’m not sure we need to regulate this throughout the month of May.”
Although the separate lotteries for the different sized spaces and the larger enforcement time frames continued cause concern, they were not deal breakers for Dare, who voted with his colleagues to approve the amended ordinance on first reading. However, he predicted the council would be debating similar issues after the summer.
“I’m going to vote for this to move it forward,” he said. “I’m sure we’ll be discussing this again when the season is over.”