In case you missed it, the chairman of the city licensing committee wrote a letter to the editor published in the Sun-Times Monday.
The full text of the letter can be found here, but the heart of the Alderman's statement is that he wants to "ensure that the concerns of Chicago's music and entertainment industry are examined through both public hearings and extensive meetings with a diverse group of promoters, musicians, and venue owners."
To date, most of the feedback the committee and other city officials have solicited from the incredibly diverse Chicago music community has come from a small group of activists and specific venue owners and concert promoters. Since this is an issue that affects myriad underground music scenes -- the Latin music world, the punk-rock scene, hip-hop, avant-jazz, electronica, etc., etc. -- much more widespread public meetings are not only warranted but necessary, if music fans are to accept their elected officials' word that, as Schulter says in the letter, he really does want to "ensure that the ordinance as it is finally passed does not place an undue burden on local musicians, young people breaking into the music industry or established venue owners."
Where and when will these meetings be held? We haven't heard yet. Hopefully we will.
This week, the Chicago music community won a respite of at least a month as the so-called "events promoters ordinance" was sent back to committee before a full City Council vote, with alderman promising to solicit more feedback from venue owners, musicians and music lovers as they attempt to rewrite the law.
By no means is it certain that elected officials will finally get it right -- especially when many believe there is no need for this law at all. As a Sun-Times editorial said on Friday: "It's doubtful whether the city needs to license promoters. Venues already must be licensed and insured. Private contracts between clubs and organizers already insure patrons' safety." (Click here to read the full editorial.)
Formed in suburban Wilmette in 2001, Fall Out Boy rose from playing exactly the sort of shows that the Chicago City Council would like to outlaw to headlining arenas and selling more than six million albums in the U.S. to date.
An avid reader of this and many other local blogs — even as he prepares for a Hollywood wedding — bassist and songwriter Pete Wentz contacted me this morning and said he felt compelled to speak out about the promoter’s ordinance. We connected a few hours later after the law was tabled (for the time being). But the perspective of a mutli-million-dollar career that would not exist without small shows organized by independent promoters is invaluable.
As with so many decisions in Chicago government, the City Council's abrupt but welcome tabling of a vote on the event promoter's ordinance seems to have been decreed from the top.
Sun-Times City Hall reporter Fran Spielman writes:
Daley said he's willing to soften his crackdown on event promoters amid warnings that the added cost could damage Chicago's thriving live music industry. "You don't want to have a burden on the event promoters. But, at the same time, they have a responsibility to protect the people," he said.
Following a nearly unprecedented outpouring of concern from the Chicago music community and a meeting with activists and some of the top concert promoters and venue owners in Chicago, Ald. Eugene Schulter, chairman of the City Council License Committee, decided on Tuesday that he will not present the so-called "event promoter's ordinance" to the full council for a vote on Wednesday -- and that the committee will go back to work on fine-tuning the law.
WTTW-Ch. 11's "Chicago Tonight" has scheduled a panel discussion about the promoter's ordinance tonight. The show airs at 7 p.m., and given that timing, it may wind up being the last public discussion about the law before it is approved by the City Council tomorrow.
Meanwhile, music community activists are meeting with aldermen and city officials today in the hopes of convincing them to table the vote until further work can be done on the ordinance and more feedback can be heard from Chicagoans.
As irony would have it, at the same meeting Wednesday when the City Council will consider a resolution opposing war on Iran (as if that august body has anything to do with national policy), it is expected to approve a law that will pretty much drop a bomb on Chicago's independent music community, if not nuke it entirely.
Following the jump is the Sun-Times' latest story outlining the controversy, followed by a letter that one of many clubs endangered by the law sent to music lovers throughout the city on Monday.
The City Council meets in the Council Chamber located on the Second Floor of City Hall, 121 North La Salle St., starting at 10 a.m. on May 14.
Here are the comments of Ald. Eugene Schulter (47th), the chairman of the city licensing committee, about the concerns of many in the Chicago music community pending the City Council vote on Wednesday on the new promoter’s ordinance.
Well, it only took 84 minutes for Efrat Dallal Stein, the spokeswoman for the Department of Business Affairs & Licensing, to respond to my request for an interview with acting director Mary Lou Eisenhauer, a driving force behind the promoter’s ordinance. Eisenhauer was out of town, but Stein said she was prepared to address all of my questions and speak publicly on the proposed law, scheduled for a City Council vote on Wednesday.
The interview with DBA’s Stein follows the jump. I’m still waiting for the return call from Ald. Schulter, author of the ordinance.
That's the question I'm eager to pose to 47th Ward Ald. Eugene Schulter, chairman of the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection, and Mary Lou Eisenhauer, acting director of the Department of Business Affairs and Licensing, prior to the vote on the ordinance scheduled for Wednesday.
I've made the calls to their offices for comment. Let's start the clock ticking as we await their responses...
Some things I missed earlier: Anyone promoting a musical event would need to be fingerprinted and pay a licensing fee as high as $2,000 (on top of securing the $300,000 insurance); promoters would have to pass criminal background checks, and they would have to notify the commander of the local police district and sign written contracts with venue owners.
Remember: All of this is being imposed on promoters when they are working with established venues that have already fulfilled all of these obligations. Some examples: the Nocturna dance nights at Metro; the International Pop Overthrow Festival, the Tomorrow Never Knows Festival and others like it at clubs such as Schubas, the Empty Bottle, the Hideout and Martyr's; the Chicago Indie Radio Project Record Fair and the Chicago Folk & Roots Festival sponsored by the Old Town School of Folk Music , to name only a few.
City Hall's justification for the new law? It's a response to the E2 disaster of 2003 -- which, if you follow the press coverage, could have been prevented if many of the laws already in place were enforced. Who would enforce this new law, and why the rush to pass it five years after E2? Those questions remain unanswered.
Meanwhile, adding their voice to the growing opposition are local promoters Jam Productions, whose co-founder Jerry Mickelson is quoted in Spielman's story:
"When I look at the business we do at the Park West [160 seats] and the Vic [250 seats], a good majority of our revenue is from outside promoters. Many of them are ... little-time guys who rent our venue maybe once a year [or] once every other year. They can’t afford to pay $500 or $1,000 for license fees,” Mickelson said.
“We’re so selective in who we allow into our venues, losing any more puts us at a danger of not operating profitably. ... It’s tough enough to stay in business. ... We struggle each year to meet our nut. This ordinance will cause us to lose events.”
Mickelson said Jam has produced over 30,000 concerts over 37 years and has never had a major tragedy. That’s because the company is so selective and keeps such close tabs on its promoters, he said.
“At E2, they said, ‘Okay, guys. You’re renting my venue. Here’s the keys to my house. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ That doesn’t happen with a responsibly run venue. It’s vastly different than the way we operate,” Mickelson said.
Following below are the text of the new promoter's ordinance that the City Council seems prepared to rush to approve next week -- with little input from the Chicago music community -- as well as the first public response to it from the Chicago Music Commission, the burgeoning activist group that seems poised to lead the fight in making the ordinance more fair for the community of artists and fans that it hopes to represent in the dark corners of City Hall.
After a more than four-hour session Wednesday, the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection passed the proposed promoters law written about at length in the preceding post. The ordinance now goes to the full City Council on May 14, and if approved there, the Chicago music scene will once again change for the worse at the hands of city officials.
With nary a word of public notice — and with no public hearings seeking input from the Chicago music community — the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection was set to meet again today in its rush to push through a new “promoters’ ordinance” initially proposed last year and only delayed at the last minute when music activists caught wind.
Like most laws, this one has a noble goal: to regulate concerts and dance events in Chicago, rooting out illegitimate “underground” promoters operating without proper licensing and therefore possibly endangering music lovers. Like many laws drafted from only one perspective, however, this one could cause serious, perhaps unintended consequences for people who try to promote live music here.
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