Montreal's Spoonman faces new busking restrictions
New bylaw means Cyrille Esteve has to move 60 metres every 60 minutes, which the busker calls 'impossible'
Cyrille Esteve, the spoon-playing fixture outside Ogilvy's department store in downtown Montreal, is once again at odds with city bylaw enforcers.
A new city ordinance means Esteve, who is known to many as the Spoonman, has to move 60 metres every 60 minutes.
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The busker, who is in his mid-60s, said that requirement is "impossible."
"I need 30 minutes to set-up in the morning and 30 minutes to pack-up in the evening," he told CBC Radio One's As It Happens.
"So, if I have to move 60 metres every 60 minutes, I would be packing and unpacking, packing and unpacking."
And Esteve doesn't pack lightly — there's the stereo for the fiddle music he spoons along to, his chair and the bike that he uses to carry it all.
"It's not like I have a stool and an accordion — I've got a bike with boxes to carry my radio, my chair, my spoons. I have to obey the laws, but they have to be a bit tolerant of elderly people," he said.
He says the rule means he's only able to play half the hours he used to, and that's halved his busking earnings from $40 a day to $20.
Those profits supplement his monthly welfare cheque, he said.
Radio restrictions
Esteve said he's also run afoul of another bylaw that says the maximum wattage for radios is 25 watts, and they can't be heard 25 metres away.
The radio also requires a sticker from the city, but Esteve said the city is out of stickers.
"The sticker is mandatory, and the city doesn't supply them anymore," he said.
He's got a letter from the city saying they don't have any more stickers, and he'll show that to police if they ask.
A history of battling bylaws
This isn't the first time Esteve has found himself at odds with city bylaws. It's happened before in 1999 and again in 2004.
That last time saw hundreds of Montrealers sign his petition protesting a city ban on playing the spoons downtown.
However, Esteve said this latest episode is different.
"They said they would seize my stuff," Esteve said. "That's the first time something like that happened."