Hippodrome Casino CEO: Buskers must respect the community
Westminster Council is looking at proposals to crackdown on performers in places like Leicester Square after thousands of complaints - most of them to do with noise levels. The CEO of Leicester Square’s Hippodrome Casino said that the buskers “do not care about the community around them, something has to change." Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Transcript
00:00 The noise from buskers in Leicester Square, it's a pain to be honest.
00:04 There are some buskers that are fabulous, they are great entertainers, they're great
00:07 performers, they bring vibrancy to the square and there are others that are mavericks that
00:11 really could not give a stuff.
00:12 They just want to make as much noise as they can, earn as much money as they can.
00:17 When you consider that an area the size of Westminster has 25% of the noise complaints
00:25 all from Leicester Square, something perhaps is wrong.
00:29 And when you've got buskers playing at up to 120 decibels in a confined area like Leicester
00:35 Square, ruining the enjoyment of people eating, ruining the enjoyment of people shopping,
00:42 staying in hotels, trying to work in offices overlooking Leicester Square, it's not good.
00:48 And 120 decibels is when you actually could risk instant hearing damage.
00:54 We're not messing around with people that are just having a bit of fun playing an instrument.
00:58 These are people that are out to make as much money as they can, to draw as big a crowd
01:02 as they can and they do not care about the community or the people around them.
01:07 Something's got to change.