Hello San Jose Mayor & City Council Members:
This email is in regards to the proposed Promoters Licensing Ordinance that you will be voting on next Tues June 3rd.
Myself and over 100 promoters, musicians, entertainers, artists, and DJ’s have organized and started a group called the San Jose Nightlife & Entertainment Committee (SJNEC) once we found out about this proposed ordinance. We don’t object to the idea of the proposed ordinance, we actually understand the city’s safety concerns, but we find that the current wording is still vague and will hurt the live music scene in San Jose.
The ordinance does a poor job defining a promoter, and we find the costs of the license and the fines to be extremely high since they will be equivalent or higher than the entertainment permits that venue owners and managers are required to get. This ordinance is making promoters accountable for human behavior, which even in the best circumstances is hard to control. Plus the City of San Jose already have the venues to be held accountable for the events that take place in them. If this ordinance passes, there will be multiple accountability and it will be a game of pointing fingers. These are just some of the concerns that have come up.
We really would like to stress that the promoters responsibility is to promote an event up until the time the event occurs. Promoters usually do not have a say over what the patrons do or how they act. It is the venues responsibility to it’s screen patrons; yet in the event that the patrons choose to do something requiring police attention, this ordinance can hold the promoters responsible for actions committed by others. The bottom line is that each individual person is accountable for their actions, not the people that told them about an event. The venues are responsible for screening patrons; if any negative results occur from a patron, it should be the venues’ responsibility (as it currently is). If the aim of this ordinance is for true accountability, hold the patrons and the venue responsible for their actions. Promoters should not be included in the realm of responsibility when their job technically ceases once the event begins.
As you may know, other cities have similar ordinances being proposed to them, but so far (to our knowledge and research) only the San Diego ordinance has passed. But please keep in mind that the San Diego ordinance is only a few pages long; very simple, very easy:
http://docs.sandiego.gov/reportstocouncil_attach/2000/00-211%20Attachment%204.pdf
The Chicago ordinance (which is most similar to ours) has been postponed due to concerns about the vague wording:
http://blogs.suntimes.com/derogatis/2008/05/update_promoters_ordinance_tab.html
We find this sentence in that article to be applicable to us:
“no hard information and that it has not formally studied the extent of the alleged problem that the law was crafted to address; they had only the anecdotal evidence”
We have been told numerous times that the reason for this ordinance is because of violence at events in downtown San Jose; and the example given most is the shooting at the Ambassador that happened approximately five years ago. We would like to point out that there was no promoter involved with that venue or that event in which the incident took place; that was all the venue owners responsibility.
We came across this White Paper called “Why the Event Promoters Ordinance should be rejected” written by Henry Perritt, a supporter of the independent artist community in Chicago:
http://www.p2plitigationsummit.com/bios/perritt.htm
We figured you might find this to be very interesting and appropriate considering the San Jose proposed Promoters Licensing Ordinance. Here’s a link to this White Paper:
http://www.therecordindustry.com/why-the-promoter-ordinance-should-be-rejected.htm
Therefore, we want to stress how most cities are still struggling with their ordinances and the wording, as well as the definition of promoter, which are our concerns still.
We also have collected over 1700+ signatures on a petition that is against the current wording of the Promoters Licensing Ordinance from businesses that make revenue from the nightlife crowd, downtown patrons, and musicians, as well as regular citizens that appreciate the local music scene and culture.
I really hope that all of you will think about this Promoters Licensing Ordinance some more and vote NO on the current proposed version on June 3rd. I think it’s in all our interests for this ordinance to be reviewed and revised so that it the live music scene and culture doesn’t get hurt by it.
Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Barbara Wahli
SJNEC Delegate
Weekly Updates | berkhhc May 31, 2008 | 
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