The Armidale Food Emporium, which was once the city's only shopping centre to allow regular buskers, will ban the liver entertainers following disputes over rostering.
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Local busker Morgan Levitt, 80, was disgusted, after centre management announced the decision this week.
He has performed outside the centre for five years, and says he was responsible for getting busking legalised in Australia in the 1970s. The money he makes busking, he uses to help the community, he said.
"They have no right to ban busking, none whatsoever," he said. "It's an insult to the people, particularly children, who love what we do."
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Centre management said it had received numerous complaints about buskers, and that their instruments, bikes, animals, and equipment created trip hazards on footpaths.
The centre had obligations under public liability insurance, which the buskers do not hold.
Centre management decided that all busking would be strictly by approval, and on a roster system.
"We were trying to create fairness to allow our buskers to continue doing what they love, but at the same time ensure the centre was not saturated by buskers daily, and would also allow for new talent to come through," a spokesperson said.
All buskers were asked to call the office to arrange times; those who had not made bookings would not be allowed to busk.
Mr Levitt objected to being cut down to two days a week. "I spent five years building that up," he said.
He usually busked 7.30 to 9.30am, and 4 to 6pm each day. This left three two-hour sessions in the middle of the day for other buskers, he argued.
He agreed with management to busk on Fridays and Saturdays, but also performed on other days, without management's permission.
On Thursday, centre management noticed Mr Levitt performing outside the store, and asked him to return on Friday.
Mr Levitt replied that he wouldn't stop singing. "While I was there, person after person said: Don't let [management] get you off, don't let [them] take away your right to sing," he said.
He called the police, claiming he was being harassed.
As Mr Levitt was on the centre's private land, the police asked him to leave. Police and management decided not to escalate the situation.
Mr Levitt claims, however, that his busking site, outside Coles, is public land.
"That path that goes past the front leads from Marsh Street to the bus stop," Mr Levitt said. "It's used commonly by normal passers-by. Technically, it's a footpath."
Centre management said that, considering recent events, it had decided to ban busking at the centre. They would like community groups and organisations to contact them about appearing at the centre.
Mr Levitt believes that management's decision is an attack on him personally, claiming that he got busking legalised.
He appeared on ABC radio and television in 1975, and explained: "Busking is bludging, but it's no different to 12 typists in an office that only needed 10" (a big union dispute at the time). Within months, busking became legitimate.
Centre management strongly deny Mr Levitt's allegations; these changes, they say, were applied to all buskers, and did not target any specific busker.
"Morgan has been a character of the centre for over six years, and is a face our shoppers have come to know," a spokesperson said.
Mr Levitt said he would continue busking. He has received much popular support on Facebook pages like Thumbs Up! Thumbs Down! Armidale.
"I'm getting so much encouragement that when I'm singing there, I'm singing by popular demand," he said.
Mr Levitt said the money he raises from busking goes back to the community. "People put it in the hat; I put it in people's pockets to help them out."
"He's Armidale's poorest philanthropist," Tony Elder of Black Dot Music said.
Mr Levitt said he lends money to people in need, expecting only a 5 per cent repayment. He has set up a monthly arrangement with charities; and said he had spent more than $2500 to sponsor a kid to the Pan-Pacific Games; raised $3500 for drought relief by raffling off a table; and gave kids musical instruments, or bookwork to help them learn.
When he arrives in the morning, he said, he puts trolleys away for Coles, and sweeps the area to get rid of cigarette butts, which reduces shoplifting.
He also gives booklets of poetry and short stories (worth $10 each) to his audience, so they get something in return. Busking, he said, covers his daily expenses, like filaments for his 3-D printer and inks for his paper.