“It’s a Raid!”

During the original winter months in the Central tunnel, I had just set up to prepare to busk. The Dragon was on the wall, laminated pics taped on either side with over 100 prints available to choose from.

I had a good feeling about the day to come…

Then a homeless guy scurried past holding his gear, giving me the heads up…

“The cops are out in force, it’s a raid! You better grab your stuff and skeddadle.”

…good advice I’m sure…if I was worried about the police, but from my personal perspective, the police in the past had been a fairly friendly bunch. So I stood my ground.

Then the exodus began…

One after another, homeless, beggar and busker passed by carrying their equipment as they vacated the tunnel quick smart. The lovely couple who played guitar and sang, trundled over to me, offering to help me pack my gear up as…

“The police are busting buskers!”

…you have to admire the courage they showed by offering to help when the big mean evil police were soon to be upon us.

I thanked them for their concern and explained I had a permit to busk. They were shocked, didn’t permits cost a fortune? They paid close attention to me as I explained how cheap the permits were and where to get them at Town Hall, mentioning how they would have to wait till Tuesday as it was a long weekend.

They then departed, with plans to safeguard their future busking endeavours by way of obtaining a buskers permit at the first opportunity.

Soon after they left, the police came strolling down the tunnel, four of them with casual looks at me as I walked over to them.

“You’re scaring away all the buskers”

…was my opening comment which elicited a smile from the officer as he shook his head in amusement…

“We’re not busting buskers, one of them was smoking in the tunnel directly below a No Smoking sign so we had to write him up“

And the rest is history as the saying goes.

If not for one obvious breach of the law, the police would have simply passed through the tunnel allowing buskers to continue as per normal. Instead, paranoia resulted in assumptions.

…

Note: My assumption that I needed a buskers permit for the tunnel was as miss-informed, due to it being city rail property, council permits do not apply, simply the fact that it is a gray area due to its original leasing to council, allows busking to occur in the vicinity.