The recently tabled “Event Promoters” ordinance, originally scheduled to be voted on by the Chicago City Council on Wednesday, May 14, is so patently fatuous and overbroad that you are moved to wonder how it was ever considered for passage into civic code. While the entire proposed law runs to several thousands of words, its most egregious proposal must be that “event promoters” register every performance they organize with the city of Chicago and pay a filing fee scaled to the expected size of the audience. The price of a promoter’s license ranges from $500 to $2000 for two years. Fines for offenses under the terms of the license range from $500 to $1000, and penalties for holding events without a license can reach $10,000. The definition of an “event promoter” is among the worst of the proposed law’s perversions; the tortured wordiness of the proposed ordinance makes every small-scale music professional, from the booking agent at the Empty Bottle to a singer-songwriter scheduling his or her own shows, subject to the law’s requirements. For the courageous few willing to pay the ridiculous registration fees, more strictures follow: every applicant must be over 21 years old, subjected to a background check, and fingerprinted. And each event promoter would have to inform the police of any performance seven days in advance of its scheduled start. Read the rest of this entry »

On January 31, the Chicago Reader ran a feature exploring the local elections taking place on Super Tuesday. The message of change dominating the presidential primary was also infecting local races, the Reader argued, and for the first time in a long time, true reformers had a chance in local elections. While the results were mixed—few newcomers won—a few elections affecting the South Side and the city at large showed some cracks in Chicago’s vaunted political machine. More interesting, the winds of change came not from political outsiders, but from emerging power establishments and insurgent insiders. We examine some of the most interesting races and find that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Read the rest of this entry »