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October 01, 2003
No Dancing Allowed! Even as
No Dancing Allowed!
Even as “Cabaret,” the musical, plays to rave reviews at Studio 54, the defunct-nightclub-turned-theater, New York’s once vital cabaret culture is under siege. Thanks to aggressive enforcement of the city’s archaic cabaret licensing laws and the pervasive new ban on cigarette smoking, both dancing and smoking cigarettes are illegal in the vast majority of bars and lounges in New York City.Indeed, “No Dancing Allowed” signs have become a common sight behind bars around town, as have noisy crowds of smokers spilling onto bar-front sidewalks. Incredulous patrons often take the “no dancing” signs for humor until reprimanded by sheepish bartenders, while the sidewalk smokers have proven to be a major new source of neighborhood noise complaints.
Easily-corrected flaws in both the cabaret law and the smoking ban are doing real damage to the city’s nightlife which, notwithstanding its inherent cultural value, contributes almost $3 billion each year to the local economy and draws more visitors to the city than the combined attendance of Broadway theaters, city sports teams, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Empire State Building according to some analysts. Ominously, industry insiders report that entrepreneurs are increasingly looking to other cities such as Miami, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas when considering opening new evening venues.
The politics of smoking aside, the cabaret laws, which were passed in 1926, are outdated, possibly unconstitutional, and certainly in need of revision. Last June, following widespread pressure, the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs held a much-heralded public hearing to discuss the laws. Three months later the agency remains in an “information gathering” mode and no timetable has been set for a proposal to the City Council. This lack of progress is difficult to understand given the widespread consensus on a straightforward fix which would resolve the law’s major defects.
Under the cabaret laws, the “synchronized movement” of three or more people is prohibited at venues without special licenses. The licenses, in turn, are only available to establishments in districts with relatively strict commercial zoning, and, even in those areas, the licenses must be approved by community boards. In effect, this means that dancing is forbidden at all but the largest of clubs in the most commercial of districts.
Most agree that large dance clubs should be confined to appropriately zoned neighborhoods and require regulation in the interest of public safety. At the same time, there is a wide range of smaller establishments including restaurants, neighborhood bars, and mid-size lounges where dancing should be allowed without the need for a license or special zoning.
The cabaret law should be amended to allow for such “incidental dancing” at these venues, regardless of zoning. To limit abuse, a cap should be placed on the size of venues (or of their dance floors) which can have “unlicensed” dancing.
Communities worried about increased noise from their local bar should be reassured by the simple fact that current noise-abuse regulations would remain unchanged. As it stands, the existing cabaret law restricts only dance and not the level of noise or music. Given the trend towards loud ambient music at most bars, the presence or absence of dancing has little affect on the venues overall volume.
David Baxley, the owner of the club Centro Fly, expressed the problem succinctly at the time of last June’s hearing: “A year ago, the only places you couldn’t dance were Afghanistan and New York City. Now you can dance in Afghanistan.”
For reasons both economic and cultural, the Department of Consumer Affairs should not hesitate to send a revised cabaret law to the City Council for approval. Once the embarrassing “No Dancing Allowed” signs have been removed from behind the city’s bars, the city can move on to finding a more workable policy on the issue of smoking.
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Posted by oliver at October 1, 2003 04:17 PM