Council calls time on late night city performers

Date Published: 13-Jun-2011

BY CIARAN TIERNEY

Late night buskers will no longer deprive city centre residents of a night’s sleep after Galway City Council adopted new byelaws to limit the hours in which street performances can take place last night.

Councillors unanimously agreed to back the byelaws which will make it an offence for street performers to make noise after 11pm at night during the summer months and after 10pm from November to February.

But last night’s meeting of the local authority heard that seven of the nine submissions made in relation to the proposed byelaws related to the nuisance caused by street performers during the day, and not just late night noise.

A number of Councillors expressed concern that musicians were using amplification during the day which caused a huge nuisance to office and shop workers.

Director of Services Kevin Swift said that the Council had examined byelaws in other cities and decided that the “simplest thing” was to prohibit performances between certain periods.

He said that the submissions received while the new regulations were being drafted showed that there was huge concern among business about amplification “at all times” and not just late at night.

Cllr Terry O’Flaherty (Ind) said it was clear that the issue of amplification needed to be dealt with when so many of the submissions dealt with the matter.

“I was in town one Saturday recently and, my God, it drove me out of the city,” she said. “A Garda told me that there was nothing he could do about it. I must stress that I am not against busking, but I am against amplification.”

Cllr Catherine Connolly (Ind) said the proposed byelaws came from city residents themselves and she suggested earlier ‘curfew’ times of 10pm (winter) and 11pm (summer), rather than the draft proposals of 11 pm and midnight, which were unanimously accepted by her colleagues.

She said the issue of amplification was the next one which would have to be dealt with by the Council’s Environmental Special Policy Committee.

“People working in offices have difficulties with buskers who have one tune,” said Cllr Declan McDonnell (Ind). “The business community are raising this with our wardens day in, day out.”