Kelowna Councillor Ryan Donn says council's decision to regulate buskers amounts to the "dumbest bylaw process ever."
Through Facebook, Donn has begun organizing an event called "Busking in Downtown Kelowna : music in our streets", where he's promising to join up and perform with local musicians, as a protest against the new rules that would limit performers to certain street corners.
Mayor Colin Basran reacted to that plan on Tuesday.
"He's free to do whatever he so chooses. But I think him doing that would really show one thing. And that is if he chose to do that, and somebody happened to complain, and bylaw were to show up, what bylaw's first attempt would be, would be compliance," he said.
Basran says that bylaw officers will only confront musicians if there have been complaints made, and they're in an area they shouldn't be.
"So they would ask Mr. Donn, 'hey Mr. Donn, did you know that you're not technically allowed to do this? Would you mind moving on? And they would try to come to an amicable solution," he said.
"If Mr. Donn was completely not willing to move, and put up a fight, at the last resort - the very last resort - potentially, Mr. Donn would get a ticket."
He says it's understandable why some people feel the new rules are too heavy-handed, but that tickets and fines are only a very last resort.
"If Mr. Donn chooses that he wants to go out and do an act of civil disobedience, the very last resort would be him getting a ticket. But I also want to point out to him that what's being proposed is done in other municipalities right across the country," he said.
"And with the other bylaws that we have in place, arts and culture in Kelowna has flourished over the last five years. So I don't see how that's going to change."
Along with being restricted to specific "busk stops" in the downtown core, performers would need to be licensed through Festivals Kelowna.
Donn says the consultation committed to on Monday is too little, too late, and that the arts community needed to be included before it made it to a council agenda.