Busking family fight for rights

Police hold back Daniel Sheffield as his keyboard battery is removed. Picture / Richard Robinson

A musical Auckland family who entertain Queen St crowds got the wrong sort of attention yesterday as they battled for their right to busk in the CBD.


The Sheffields, known to inner-city workers for their relentless keyboard-playing to raise funds for their ballerina sister Holly, were issued a trespass notice after failing to take their music elsewhere yesterday afternoon.

Brothers Daniel, 14, and Michael, 20, set up their equipment under the sheltered entrance to a building at 45 Queen St yesterday and First Security guards and police were called to the building when they refused to move from the entrance.

The brothers moved on to the footpath and were told there had been a complaint about the volume of their music.

Believing they were within their right to spend half an hour busking on the footpath they refused to move on as requested, and a guard attempted to issue a trespass notice to the boys and their mother, Carol Sheffield.

Watched by incredulous passers-by, Daniel played the theme to The Simpsons on his keyboard and shouted that he knew his rights.

A scuffle followed and he shouted, "You're not allowed to assault me! You're not allowed to assault me! I said, let go!" Next, the guard, who is allowed to confiscate equipment if the bylaw is breached, tried to take a battery from the keyboard.

Daniel tried to take it back, saying the guard was stealing it, and police officers then separated the pair.

Sergeant Darryl Bovaird said police were there to restore public order, not to enforce the council bylaws relating to busking.

A council spokesman said the trespass notice would have been in relation to the family's refusing to move from the entrance of the building.

Trespass was not a council issue.

After a similar incident in October, when the brothers were arrested and their equipment confiscated, Auckland City Mayor Dick Hubbard met the family to try to resolve the conflict.

Mrs Sheffield said the family had busked for eight years.

"We have respect for the council and we have respect for other people and we've always been compliant."

She said security guards picked on the family.

Her family needed to raise nearly $80,000 a year for Holly to attend Britain's Elmhurst ballet school.

The council is set to announce amendments to the bylaw which a spokesman said would please buskers.