C Drew - Street Artist Adventures

At the beginning of this week I promised news about our progress in challenging Chicago’s peddlers license.

Monday I suggested we try selling at the Watertower Place just to get the Chicago Park District policy on record as opposing the selling of art on “their” public property. It may have backfired for us because our video volunteers crowded up on the responding cop. At first he became agitated by the attention and tried to intimidate the video artists but they were seasoned vets and kept filming while insisting calmly that they did have the right to video a public servant in public while they are on duty. Once I got him to admit that I was not allowed my First Amendment protection on this park board property because, he said, it is run by a private company and that’s their rules.

This tactic needs to be exposed and confronted. Who is the “private” company at Watertower Place? What is the written agreement between the company and the Chicago Park District? What is “policy” written and unwritten of the Parks and of the company? Who can research this for us? We need this knowledge for the future. But our priority target is the peddlers license.

So I split across the street to tease the security personnel of Hersheys into calling the beat cop. The only thing with this is that we had just met the beat cop and he did not follow me over to Hersheys. Maybe, I should have been more arrogant. I gave in too easily. Maybe he had better things to do. Maybe?

Hersheys, this was the same space I was threatened with arrest several years ago for selling my art-patches. I had a peddlers license then. The cop didn’t even know the law but she was ready to enforce the wishes of the Hersheys security personnel. When I took her photo she freaked out and I agreed to leave before she vamped on me. Today, I called out my “art-for-sale” in front of Hersheys flagship store in violation of the peddlers license for over an hour and a half without a cop showing up.

I began to move along Michigan Avenue selling art. After another forty-five minutes I met the same beat cop. He explained again that I needed a permit to sell but unless someone called in a complaint he would not act. By now, he was calm and very polite. I knew our mission was hopeless on this stretch of Michigan Avenue. I called for consultation.

My video person suggested I sell alongside Millennium Park. We walked down that way selling in front of a number of swanky stores testing the security in hopes of a complaint. We stopped at three or four Victoria’s Secret wing-stands. In front of the huge spread wings encased in a 6 foot plastic box there is a marble step with feet painted where they suggest you stand. Tourists have their photos taken with the wings behind them to make themselves look angelic in Chicago. I stood for photos in my red art-for-sale poncho at each pair of wings we passed. Ha-ha. The tourists bought some of our local art. What a crime! Ha!

At millennium Park we found a confrontation immediately, without any trouble. However, it turned out the City’s trick here, again, is to hide behind a private maintenance company, MB Real Estate. The MB Real Estate security guard let me know fast that I was not allowed to solicit anybody about anything in Millennium Park. Then, he claimed that the City had passed a law that made the sidewalk along Millennium Park a part of the park and that MB Real Estate is contracted to provide security over it, as well. Apparently, the rules we must follow are whatever the company says they are. Interesting.

So now MB Real Estate is allowed to deprive Chicago citizens of their First Amendment rights as if they are administering private property and not a public park. This is not constitutional behavior. The City is not allowed to violate our First Amendment rights and they are not allowed to delegate to a private company the ability to violate our First Amendment rights. A public park is a forum for the public. Check out the Seattle case for the latest lawsuit on this subject which the “people” have won. We need to find the law they speak about if it exists and demand a list of MB Real Estate’s written rules for the area they administer. Is there a volunteer who would like to research this? A law or journalism student who would like to contribute would be ideal – or anybody with a zeal for the job.

But I want to confront the peddlers license first and not this illegal delegation of responsibility for our rights to a private company, not yet.

So I crossed the street to try to a location where two beat cops had threatened me with arrest one year ago for giving away art. I wasn’t even selling art then. I wasn’t violating any law. They arrived fast too, within 20 minutes. When I asked what law I was violating, the lead policeman told me they would read me the law once I was down at the station. This day, a year later, as I violated the peddlers license law, I did not see a policeman anywhere. I spent half an hour there and nearly an hour just half a block north outside the Washington Street door of the Chicago Cultural Center selling patches without seeing a single beat cop.

Wednesday, 10/21/09, the weather was in the 60’s and I went out again from 3-5pm with video backup. This time the video crew pretended not to be associated with me and filmed from across the street. I mainly worked the north side of the Chicago Cultural Center.

When it was apparent that no one from the Cultural Center would complain, I walked around to Wacker and State which is a speech corner defined in the peddlers license code. I had worked that corner the year I paid for a peddlers license. That was 2006. I applied for and received a speech permit. Then the security officer from the Bank on that corner checked me out within 15 minutes of my arrival. She did not listen to me when I explained I had a speech permit to be there.

I had to argue through the lunch hour with the policeman she called and his supervisor for the right to sell art with a peddlers license and a speech permit in my hand on one of the few designated speech corners in Chicago’s Loop. I had my receipts for my license, a copy of my permit application and the text of the peddlers license code in a folder in my leather bag. I had a printout of every design I was permitted to sell by the Department of Business Affairs and Licenses. Finally, once the best of the day for selling – the lunch hour – was over, they decided to let me sell. They promised to check out my story and deal with me if need be the next time I returned. They would have no need, I knew.

Once I established myself as having a peddlers license and speech permit the bank’s security checked me out promptly again the first time I worked each month to see if I had renewed my speech permit. I only had a half hour to test the Bank this time but no one came out to ask me what I was doing or to ask if I had a permit to do it there. I was disappointed in them. What has happened to their efficiency?

My video volunteers were disappointed too. We went home beginning to wonder if the City intended to let me sell without enforcing the peddlers license.

I spoke with a friend that night and bragged. “They’ll take me in tomorrow!” I bet. The October 22nd day of protest against police brutality takes place then at the Federal Building plaza. “I’ll be giving away a Carlos Cortez anti-police-brutality patch and dancing around in my ‘Art for Sale’ costume.” I explained. “I’ve been there before. They bring out the calvary – police on horses and officers in bubble wrap with batons at the ready with helicopters hovering around – they hate us. If I wander off after that they will not forget I was a part of the protesters. Yeah, and I’ll remind them that I am violating the peddlers license, too,” I laughed with my friend. We laughed but then my friend turned serious and became very concerned for my safety.

The next day, Thursday, 10/22/09, I printed a hundred patches of the Carlos Cortez design. I headed toward the Loop. It was overcast and sprinkling rain. As I crossed over to Federal Plaza the protest speaker was explaining the killing of a young Blackman by a Chicago policeman. The young man was shot in the back and left to lie on the street for a long time where he died from loss of blood. The Calvary was not out today. There were no officers in riot bubble-wrap. “The City is broke – must be broke,”I exclaimed out loud, seeing this. I had editorialized about the unnecessary cost of police overkill at protests in years past. Now even the City appears to agree with me on this issue. Ha! It looked like a small handful of officers were assigned to the entire event. Just enough to maintain traffic control when we go on our traditional march through the Loop I estimated.

They were well into their agenda when I arrived. Art-patches with a safety pin attached flew from my hands as fast as I could thumb them free without dropping them on the wet ground. The speaker announced the march route well before I could give half of those gathered a patch. So, beginning at the tail end of the march I worked my way forward giving out free patches to all who would accept them. We chanted and marched on the sidewalks close to the passing public. Those with signs pushed them forward toward those we passed. Without bubble-wrapped officers standing between us and the public our message struck home more forcefully. When the City could afford it they were willing to pay any cost to cripple our First Amendment right to bring attention to their abuse of power to our fellow citizens.

Some people in the March knew me from before. I get around. Many wondered who this guy was giving out free art-patches but only a couple reacted to me with suspicion and refused the art-patch. I was able to give everyone who wanted one an art-patch by the time we arrived at City Hall. The march stopped at City Hall with several banners facing the street while a speaker gave a speech about the “stolen lives” followed by our chants. “Shot in the back – and that’s a fact” and “The whole damn system is guilty as hell.” The police investigate themselves in Chicago. By the time anyone else gets any evidence in a fatal shooting of a citizen the police have already informally come up with their own “official” story. HA-Ha-haaa!

Once we returned to the Federal Plaza I tried to interest one of the two video volunteers covering the October 22nd event to help cover me as I attempted again to get busted for violating the peddlers license. Both were busy and one stated “They aren’t going to bust you. They don’t want the publicity.” They did not want to follow me around town for nothing. I did not blame them.

I left out on my own, with my camera in my hand, ready to document any conflict as best I could. With the whole history contained in this blog any, court will have a sense of the conflict, I figured. I will take enough photos to document the event my surroundings to illustrate the legal issues at hand.

From 2:00 to 4:30pm I walked selling – hawking, “art-patches by a dozen local artists.” In front of CitiBank the security guard watched me from the picture window before retiring to a security station near their main entrance. I saw him talking on a phone there. Did he call for enforcement? If so what did the police tell him they would do? Would I spy a beat cop coming my way soon? I hawked my art-patches looking hopefully around for the sight of an officer on a bike or on foot. I worked this spot for well over half an hour waiting for something to happen but nothing did.

The day ended without police speaking to me. For years I said I wanted to pick the time and place to confront the City but it appears now, that they intend to do the picking of the time and place. From reading the history of the struggle for artists’ speech rights in New York City (1993-present), the police there would wait until they found artists alone and then bust them when there was no one with a video camera around. Is that what is happening here? Time will tell. And when time tells me, I will tell you in this blog. Pass the word about my “Street Artist Adventures.” It is about to get interesting.