Philadelphia Promoter Bill Proposed: Promoters Not Impressed
Councilmembers Greene and Clarke have quietly submitted a bill targeting event promoters within the city of Philadelphia at the end of April and are working on trying to push it throw into law. This has received very little, if any, coverage by the main media outlets, but its impact could be severe. Particularly on smaller or independent promoters. you can give it a read here.
On the surface the legislation may seem benign, but you have to read between the lines in order to deduce its intentions. What's more important is what is not there.
Here is a basic overview of what is proposed:
- Promoters must register their events with the neighborhood police at least 30 days in advance which includes the submission of a detailed security plan.
- Events are approved by default unless the police unit decides to revoke it before 10 days prior to the date of the event.
- This applies to promoters of all events categorized under special assembly. Concerts, sports, festivals, and so on are included. Non-profits and political campaign events are excluded.
- Promoters are also made responsible for behavior outside of the confines of the event in the neighborhood.
The document is glaringly one-sided and leaves the door wide open for abuse. Denial of an event is entirely arbitrary. No guidelines are provided whatsoever for the police to follow. No appeal process is provided. This allows for events to be blocked on personal or political whims. Just because the police are the mouthpiece doesn't mean that the politicians can't influence their decisions. Ultimately this gives the city government control over precisely where, when, and what events it chooses to allow.
While this applies to an array of event types, concerts are clearly the primary target. Technically this applies to big sporting events like Eagles games as they are legally no different and athletic events are even explicitly mentioned. However, can you really see this being enforced with such big players? Even with the large venues like the Electric Factory, I can't see this being applied and enforced fairly. The intent seems to be to establish a means of cracking down on smaller events that generate nuisances. To be fair, there certainly are some that do and there are absolutely some lousy promoters. The problem is that there are some in law enforcement and politics who do not understand or participate in the music culture and blindly label them all as such.
As for the placing responsibility on the promoter for the behavior of others outside of the property of the venue, the proposal goes well beyond reason. It is not at all in the interest of the promoter or venue to have people making trouble in the neighborhood. Those who intend to keep things going in the long term certainly try to limit problems by encouraging people to disperse. However, once they step off the property the promoter has no legal means of influencing behavior. Legally, you can't touch people outside of the event. Inside you can, which allows for people to be physically removed as a trespasser. Outside, people are in the public domain which falls under the monitoring of law enforcement personnel who do have the means and responsibility of dealing with public nuisances.
I see this legislation quickly being abused at the expense of the people's lawful right to assemble. Without fair and reasonable safeguards, those in power will use it to quash events that they do not want occurring in particular locations simply because they do not want the particular type of event or associated audience around.
Consequences for violation of these laws are also arbitrary. While most of the document is fairly clear, this section is conveniently clouded in legalese. This seems intentional designed to obscure the intent to determine consequences at a whim, open to all sorts of bias.
The explicit exclusion granted for politicians in their event promotion efforts stands out. This is the only item that is blatantly sleazy. It shows that they are perfectly willing to force the law on others, but not willing to abide by it themselves. Perhaps because they realize that it could just as arbitrarily be applied to them. While it is not unusual for politicians to make convenient exceptions for themselves, that does not make it any less unethical.
The big question, however, is whether such legislation is even necessary in the first place. Is there really a significant enough problem with lousy promoters to justify the creation of new law? Poorly run events do happen, but it's pretty rare that events create major problems. Additionally, there is already a market force that weeds out these bad promoters. Word spreads. Venues and performers decline to do business with them and people decline to attend.
Please, let the council know that you do not approve of this legislation.
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