I live in Oakland, CA and it's a very common practice here for musicians like myself to rent out a small warehouse to use as living quarters and a place to practice music/create art without disturbing neighbors since well, there are none.
I was wondering if anyone is familiar with zoning laws in Japan and whether it's legal or not to rent commerical space like a warehouse/retail shop and sleep/live in the back. I read somewhere that Japanese cops don't care that much since space is so limited in large cities so they want people to get the most use out of the space they have, but that was just a random website so I'm not really sure.
I could just get a normal apartment and rent rehearsal space at a studio when I want to play drums but it'd be nice to get a warehouse or something similar in a commerical district so I could play all night without disturbing anyone and have the occasional warehouse party and have bands play and have visual artists put on exhibitions and stuff. Maybe this sort of thing is very unusual for foreigners to do in Japan I dunno..it's just a really common thing where I'm from and in most big American cities like LA/NYC so I figured I'd ask. Usually the establishment is on file as a "Not for Profit Art Gallery" or something like that so you don't need live music permits or a business license or anything.
Any help/advice is greatly appreciated of course
