On Tuesday, February 18, The Great Morgani announced he will no longer be performing in downtown Santa Cruz "due to the recent strict enforcement of current ordinances" passed by the Santa Cruz City Council.

Joe Rose, an illustrator and painter who regularly displays his artwork on Pacific Avenue, reports that on Sunday afternoon, he witnessed two Santa Cruz Police officers hassling The Great Morgani on Pacific Ave. Joe wrote, “there were 2 cops that stopped him playing when he had a crowd of about a dozen people watching.”

The Great Morgani, aka Frank Lima, is a longtime street performer and performance artist from Santa Cruz, recognized as one of city's most interesting characters. He plays the accordion and dresses in homemade, seasonally relevant costumes which sometimes take up to 100 hours of work to create.

He authored a book, The Great Morgani: The Creative Madness of a Middle-Aged Stock Broker Turned Street Musician, which is described as a "photo-illustrated story of one of the United States' most flamboyant and unusual street musicians."

Read More and View Photos | TheGreatMorgani.com | Tuesday, Feb. 25 at 5 pm: City Council Meeting

See Also: Love Gutter played on Pac. Ave. 6 years until a $450 ticket || A Civil Libertarian Looks at Street Performers and the First Amendment || Shafting Non-Shoppers: Expanding the Destructive Downtown Ordinances || Why is Pamela Comstock hating on Flea Markets?