In a world where the USA has the highest rate of imprisonment, what is it that cops do to earn their 3-figure salaries?

Around here, they like to go around shutting down every live music event possible.

Case in point: the other night one of my favorite local bands, Loko Ono, put on a small show in the industrial section of SLO. All of the neighboring property was zoned for manufacturing which means that they have the highest allowed noise level in the entire city. But that wasn’t enough to stop local police from shutting it down from the get-go and slapping them with a noise violation($350 fine last I checked). That may be par for the course in SLO, but it’s actually the first time I’ve witnessed a peace officer saying that he’s going to give someone a ticket because he’s ‘being an asshole’.

Truly a new low for this town. Those in positions of authority need to be held to a higher standard of accountability, not a lower one than your average citizen. You don’t make our cities any safer by destroying the parts of our community that make you feel personally uncomfortable. A society which is hostile to art and culture is not sustainable; it’s self-destructing.

We had to go hide in someone’s house to let Jurassic Shark and the other bands play. Why don’t we have any affordable venues for live shows in this area? Why do cops take a piss on the bright futures of our most talented???

Police are supposed to be public servants, and there are communities where the police work hard to improve the lives of others, where the bonds of trust go both ways. I know that’s probably hard to believe if you grew up around here, but here’s just one example of progressive police in Georgia who are teaching kids how to play music instead of shutting them down.

But democracy only serves those who show up. You have no real freedom if you never feel safe enough to exercise it. Join me in sending a message to the city council that this is not how we, the public, want our police to act.

We can make whatever world we want to live in, and I want to live in a world where we reward people, rather than punish them, for creating music.