Street musician Bill Page fighting recent sidewalk citation

Photo by Adam Brimer

Bill Page plays for tips as Jack Wolf, center, and Katie Mitchell pet his dog, Jake, recently on Market Square. Page was cited by KPD on May 7 for obstructing the sidewalk on Gay Street.

Photo by Adam Brimer

Bill Page plays for tips as Jack Wolf, center, and Katie Mitchell pet his dog, Jake, recently on Market Square. Page was cited by KPD on May 7 for obstructing the sidewalk on Gay Street.

KNOXVILLE — As a musician, Bill Page doesn't have a very big sound, but how much space the rest of him fills is currently up for debate with the Knoxville Police Department.

The longtime downtown busker was cited May 7 for allegedly obstructing a public sidewalk - more than 10 feet wide - and for blocking access to a business as he sat in front of an empty Gay Street storefront, singing and playing his acoustic guitar for tips.

When the officers approached him, Page, 58, said he assumed it would be more of the same sort of harassment he and other buskers had received only a few years ago on nearby Market Square, where police had repeatedly run them off for panhandling.

The hassling only stopped after Market Square business owners complained to the mayor's office. In turn, a policy was drafted to specify that busking is not illegal downtown.

Last month on Gay Street, the police took issue with Page again, albeit for a different reason.

"They went fishing," contends Page, who has chosen to contest the $50 ticket in Knoxville City Court. "They didn't know what to cite me for after I quoted the law front and back."

KPD alleges that he violated the city's anti-loitering ordinance. It was amended in June 2009 to also prohibit sitting or lying on any sidewalk in the greater downtown area, primarily as a means of dispersing the homeless people who congregate on lower Broadway.

"He had his blanket spread out on the sidewalk, he had a chair, a backpack and his dog," said KPD Deputy Chief David Rausch, who relayed the accounts of the officers who were involved. "Basically, he just set up camp on the sidewalk."

The citation's narrative does not mention a blanket, and Page insists that he did not have one.

"I was right up against the door, not in the middle of the sidewalk," he said.

The officers asked the busker to move along and suggested he try Market Square.

Page, who earns most of his income as a street musician, had just left the square to escape the noise of the many other musicians there during a monthly downtown First Friday event.

"He has to set up where there are people," said David Skidmore, an attorney with the Knox County Public Defender's Office who has volunteered to represent Page. "The nights he makes the most money are First Fridays and Sundown in the City, when he can't actually play on the square."

Police were acting on a complaint from employees next door with the Regal Riviera Stadium 8, who alerted two off-duty KPD officers working security at the movie theater, Rausch said. The officers then called for on-duty backup.

According to the citation, Page was obstructing a public sidewalk and "also blocking a private doorway to 510 S. Gay Street."

That is the listed address for the Regal Riviera. All parties, however, described Page as sitting on his camp stool in the doorway of an adjacent, empty commercial space, which actually is listed at 506 S. Gay Street.

Regal employees told the officers that the theater was using the unleased space next door for storage at the time, said Rausch, and that Page was blocking their access to supplies inside.

"There are some locations up and down Gay Street that you could (busk) without violating the ordinance," Rausch said. "But it depends. He was in front of a business, in front of a doorway that was being used by employees of an open business."

The movie theater and the empty storefront both were built in 2007 as part of a larger city-funded development on property that is managed by the Public Building Authority, which oversees its leasing.

"Regal does not have the keys to that space," PBA Administrator Dale Smith said last week. "Regal is not and has not ever used that space for storage."

A manager for the Riviera declined comment last week.

Rausch said 34 citations have been written under the amended sidewalk ordinance since officers began enforcing it late last year, including some that were written for loitering. Only seven of the tickets have been issued in the downtown core.

"We're all going to have to learn the parameters of it," said Skidmore. "I'm hoping we can get this dismissed with a better understanding of what this ordinance applies to."

Page's case is set for July 7.

Hayes Hickman may be reached at 865-342-6323.

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