You Can Legally Busk in NYC’s Subways, But a Cop Might Arrest You Anyway

Can you legally busk in New York City’s subways? Yes. Do you
need a permit? No. Will these facts stop a police officer from
arresting you for busking without a permit? Take a guess.

Andrew Kalleen, 30, a local musician performing in a Brooklyn
subway station, was recorded last week on a cellphone camera
debating with an officer about whether he’s allowed to play his
guitar there. He tells the cop to look up Metropolitan
Transportation Authority’s (MTA) Rules of Conducts and Fines
Section 1050.6c. The officer reads it aloud:

The following nontransit uses are permitted by the Authority,
provided they do not impede transit activities and they are
conducted in accordance with these rules: public speaking;
campaigning; leafletting or distribution of written noncommercial
materials; activities intended to encourage and facilitate voter
registration; artistic performances, including the acceptance of
donations.

And yet, he says he’s ejecting from the station Kalleen anyway.
Kalleen starts playing music again, and the cop handcuffs him.
BoingBoing
notes, “See the two undercover officers appear during the
arrest.”

You can watch the incident here. Since Friday it’s generated
over 800,000 views on Youtube. Warning: There’s intermittent
hipster overload.

From The
Huffington Post:

the arresting officer charged him with loitering, but only after
poring over a law book in the back of the police van.

While state
law prohibits people from loitering in the subway “for the
purpose of soliciting or engaging in business,” that law seems to
contradict the MTA rule, which allows performing for money.

Matthew Christian, a street violinist who co-founded BUSK-NY, a
group that advocates for street performers, said the police often
charge performers with vague offenses like loitering when they
can’t find a more convincing justification for arrest.

“This happens so often,” Christian said. “When police officers
don’t precisely know the law, they arrest someone over their own
refusal to back down, and once the person is brought to the police
station and booked, they can’t find anything else to charge them
with, so they go mining.”

This story has a happy ending, though. Yesterday, following a
review of the above video by the New York Police Department, “the
arrest [was] voided,”
according to CBS. Other local musicians
planned a protest, but it’s not clear what impact that might
have had.  

In other MTA news, the authority is considering raising fares 15
percent to fill its
$15 billion budget gap.