For generations, street musicians have provided the soundtrack for Leicester Square, a tourist hub in London’s West End, where the likes of Rod Stewart and George Michael busked before becoming superstars.
Now the city is changing its tune.
The Westminster City Council, the local borough authority, this week banned street performances in Leicester Square after a judge described them as a “nuisance,” noting that repetitive sounds (including famous pop songs) were a well-known feature of “psychological torture.”
The ban was announced Thursday after Global, a media company with an office building on the square, took the council to court, arguing that the noise from the performances was “overwhelming.” The company said its office workers were forced to take phone calls in cupboards to escape the sounds from the street below.
Buskers have long been polarizing in big cities. Some see whimsy in a cover band in subway stations; others would rather keep it out of public spaces. In one London square, at least, the critics seem to have won out.
On Thursday morning in Leicester Square (pronounced “Lester”), the yellow circles where buskers had performed were empty. News of the ban provoked joy, indignation and relief.
“Oh, thank God,” said Abu Khan, 28, after a reporter told him about the ban.
Mr. Khan, who works 12 hours a day at a convenience store in Leicester Square, said the music was sometimes so loud he couldn’t hear customers.
“I have to scream loud, and my customer thinks I’m fighting with him,” he said. “I’m losing my customers because of my voice.”
The shows also drew crowds of tourists who blocked the entrance to the shop, he said. The blaring tunes also stressed him out.
“I have family problems, doctor problems, job problems, girlfriend problems,” he said. “They give me more headaches.”
For others, the music has been part of the square’s charm.
Dorian Ronne, a pub manager, noted that people had been performing in the square longer than some of the nearby businesses had existed.
“It’s like people going to the countryside and complaining about the hogs and cows,” Mr. Ronne, 27, said.
Sandy Malai, a 22-year-old deputy manager at a fast-food restaurant, said the buskers’ soundtrack lightened her workdays and delighted her customers. A picture of a singer with a guitar and microphone, surrounded by silhouetted figures carrying shopping bags, hangs inside the restaurant.
“It’s the culture of Leicester Square,” she said, pointing to the image. “They’ve been here for years and years.”
Chris Jones, 35, a bartender at a nearby pub, was of two minds. Great performances felt like “fresh air,” he said. But “there’s a proportion of them that ruin it for everybody else.”
He said he’d seen performers harass tourists for donations and beatboxers “slander” people and the government. “From a business point of view,” he said, “sometimes it’s bloody annoying.”
On his lunch break in the square, Edward Lewis, 43, a construction worker, said the ban was an affront to liberty.
“It’s an overreach from the government,” he said. “How do you take away someone’s right to perform on the street?”
The ban applies only to Leicester Square, and not to the other 24 locations across the city, like Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus, where buskers can still perform, the council said.
“Street performers are a much-loved part of our city, but we have to balance this with a duty to prevent disruption to residents and businesses,” Aicha Less, a council member, said. “The court ruling has given us no choice.”
Global, which brought the case against the council, did not respond to a request for comment.
In Covent Garden, another tourist hub a short walk away, hundreds of people took breaks from shopping and eating on Thursday to watch buskers sing, paint and perform circus acts.
Pete Kolofsky, 42, a busker who specializes in swallowing swords and is a representative for the Street Performers Association, which runs busking sites at Covent Garden, took issue with the judge’s ruling — and his comparison to “psychological torture.”
“That seemed a little unnecessary,” he said.
Buskers are also great for business, Jean Guillaume, 60 said.
When the performers who regularly sang near his tobacco shop in Covent Garden had not arrived by noon, two hours later than usual, he began to worry. “It brings people in,” he said.
Do the songs the buskers sing on repeat haunt his dreams? Yes.
Does he want to heckle them to change their tunes? Sometimes.
“But at the same time, I wouldn’t let what happened in Leicester Square happen here, from a business point of view,” he said. “It really makes a difference when they’re not here.”
A few yards away, Ron Samm, a busker who goes by the name Big Ron, burst into a rendition of “Panis angelicus.” People gathered around and began recording.
“Buskers provide a bit of a safety valve for people,” Mr. Samm said before his performance. They offer a moment, in a chaotic city, he said, “to take yourself away, suspend your disbelief and woes for a while — and have a laugh.”
Jonathan Wolfe is a Times reporter based in London, covering breaking news.
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