COEUR d’ALENE — Coeur d’Alene musician Jesse Warburton is hoping for change.

Coeur d’Alene City Council members might accommodate him.

Warburton, aka Brother Music, is a busker. That means he plays music in public places for gratuities.

“You may have seen me downtown, next to my blue van playing music,” Warburton told council members this week. “I had a great summer and fall last year.”

Since his traveling guitar show debuted in Coeur d’Alene a year and a half ago — Warburton is formerly of Sandpoint — he has had the occasional hangers-on, but his over-the-shoulders hair and braided beard and the sound his guitar makes have also drawn flak.

Warburton asked City Council members to consider approving an ordinance to address street singers and musicians in an effort to lend credibility to his endeavors.

“So ... not anybody who makes a phone call that doesn’t like what’s on the side of my van, or my looks, can complain and the police officer is immediately right there,” Warburton said.

Police officers don’t harass him, or make him quit playing, Warburton said.

“But it doesn’t really enhance your way of performing, when you have to answer a lot of questions,” he said. “You become a spectacle.”

City ordinances cover panhandling, but busking doesn’t fall under the panhandling ordinance, council member Dan Gookin said.

There is, however, one ordinance that addresses an aspect of street performing.

“I guess the issue is amplification,” Mayor Steve Widmyer said. “Amplification of the music becomes problematic.”

City attorney Mike Gridley said amplifiers pushing “clearly audible” music out to 50 feet are illegal.

“That will probably affect almost all amplified music,” Gridley said.

What street performers are allowed to do falls under the jurisdiction of the art commission as an aspect of the performing arts, but when it comes to the law, the rules about busking are as ambiguous a Bob Dylan song.

Deputy city administrator Sam Taylor said an art commission subcommittee will look at rules regarding busking.

“There is case law. Other communities have already dealt with it,” Taylor said. “We want to find a solution that promotes downtown adequately in the right way.”

Warburton said the city of Sandpoint accommodated amplified music by allowing the sound to be at 70 decibels — about as loud as a vacuum cleaner — within 50 feet.

“That’s pretty loud,” he said. “It would be loud enough for me, for sure.”

Gookin, an advocate of the street sound, wanted to be sure Warburton’s concerns didn’t fall on deaf ears.

“We’ve got to fix the ordinance,” Gookin said. “I prefer to be accommodating.”