Please tell me your opinions on this.
Local Paper details City Meeting
Portsmouth Halloween Parade site (Flash/Graphics heavy)
I live in the small ocean side town Portsmouth, New Hampshire U.S.
It used to be a much poorer community and has become quite affluent over the last two decades. Condos are everywhere, as are our police officers.
The are a lot of 'no's in this community. No Skateboarding, No Buskers (without difficult to obtain licenses), and a lot of activities that are tolerated in other communities will lead directly and immediately to arrest here.
There has been a recent case of a sidewalk performer being fined heavily for obstructing the sidewalk, a charge which is unconstitutional.
I'm part of a state recognized non profit that does one thing in Portsmouth.
We organize and fundraise to support the Portsmouth Halloween Parade.
Last year was our 11th annual Parade. We're an adamantly non commercial non motorized volunteer event. Every year the Parade gets bigger, last year there were probably 1,000 spectators and 700 participants.
The PHP Committee is made up of local artists, business owners, and school teachers. We raise the money for the police detail and the required insurance for the event. Last year the combined cost for this 1 hour event was just about 2,000.00 dollars. The police charge us for 4 hours of their time. We work with the local City Council, the City Manager, the PD, the Fire Dept, and a local school to put the event on in a manner that seeks to address all the issues of the community.
Last year we sent letters to local churches for the first time and our efforts were reward by the local UU church serenading us as we marched by.
I have participated in over 5 of the Parades, some of our members have been in all of them. We've been very proud of our community, there has never been anyone in the Parade known to be disruptive, abusive, or lewd. We firmly believe the event is community appropriate to our standard of nudity/sexual behavior/vulgarity.
We do, however, have a large number of political satire oriented participants.
This seems to be upsetting people to the degree where the Parade is in danger of being censored.
I am less certain of the issue of 'scantily clad' participants, as I have never seen anyone in the parade wearing less than a commercially available bathing suit or bikini. Certainly nothing less than some humanoid Disney characters.
The organizers of the Parade expect that if a person is behaving in an inappropriate manner the police will interact with that person, as that's why we're paying them.....
For your consideration:
First Amendment Rights of Street Performers
The Parade is not the same as a sidewalk performer because it does require traffic being stopped or rerouted. I'm posting the link more to give information on the current atmosphere surrounding community public art. |
