Breaking the law at Beatrice
Did you know you can only legally dance at 181 places in New York City? Yup, the lamest and most violated law ever (besides pot’s illegal status) may finally end. Mayor Bloomberg’s office is moving to reverse the 1926 Cabaret Law that requires any venue with “more than three people dancing” to have a permit, called a cabaret license, of which there are less than 200.
In a city with 10,000 bars and 8 million insane horn-dogs, dancing’s illegality always made zero sense. Let’s all get drunk at 3am and…stand around staring at each other or talking about nothing. Drunken convos are so overrated. Of course, it was only after Rudy G’s “Quality of Life” campaign that the Cabaret Law started being enforced.
Cheers to Bloomberg! The end of the Cabaret Law would offer many more DJ gigs and cut down your pointless drunk conversations by at least 60%. Soon, I may never have to hear about the company or magazine or “eco-friendly sustainable co-op” you’re (not) starting—I’ll be able to just dance away.
“We either want to eliminate the license or establish a different license so that it would be less onerous for people to engage in dancing,” said a source close to the mayor.
The 82-year-old license “as it exists doesn’t offer a reasonable opportunity for New Yorkers to dance at clubs,” the City Hall source said.
As the 1926 law stands, three or more people can’t dance unless a bar or restaurant has a cabaret license - even if music and liquor are allowed.
There are 181 licensed cabarets in New York, according to Consumer Affairs, and most are limited to techno-thumping clubs in Manhattan.
But dancers have long complained the license process squeezes out small venues that might offer swing and salsa and even sued the city last year to reverse its Prohibition-era ban on social dancing.
TAGS: dog, drunk, Manhattan, Music, New York, New York City, NSA
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS
