Today's New York Sun details the rising trend in restricting late night liquor operations by withholding liquor licenses from venues that will not promise to close up by 2am or even midnight or 1am on weekdays. Having traveled to party cities such as Barcelona and Berlin, where the party starts at these times and goes well into the following afternoon, I had hoped that a nightlife savior would materialize some time soon and repeal the laws created by these teetotalers. Sadly, that has yet to happen.
The Village Voice's nightlife columnist Tricia Romano has done some great coverage of the equally draconian cabaret laws, enacted in 1926, which forbid dancing in venues without cabaret licenses. Cabaret licenses are hella pricey and hard to obtain. A court case filed in 2005 suing the city for the right to dance only upheld the city's belief that New Yorkers are not entitled to dance. And yes, I've been told (at Happy Ending, in the Lower East Side) to stop dancing or I would be thrown out of the venue. WTF.If you'd like to help change these laws, you can take action. Join your community board. Help lobby with the New York Nightlife Association. Or take part in the upcoming dance parade. Otherwise, you can move to Berlin. I think a club owner's quote was from Romano's 1999 article sums it up best: "[In 2000] the only places it was illegal to dance were Manhattan and Afghanistan. Now you can dance in Afghanistan."
3 comments:
hey thanks for shouting us out!
we need everyone's passion and support -- behind the scenes and on the ave -- to make the event its best.
Gee, after 70-odd years, for some strange reason communities are suddenly objecting to a 4am closing time for bars? Whatever could the reason be? We know it could have nothing at all to do with the smoking ban and groups of smokers and their friends standing around outside at 3am... after all, we were told there would be no harm from such a ban and Mayor Bloomberg has told us repeatedly how happy everyone is with it!
Or could they have lied? And if they lied and continue to lie about this, do you think they might have lied about some of the reasons for pushing the ban as well?
Read the "Generic Stiletto" at
http://www.smokersclubinc.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4472
to see how much you were lied to about the health and economic effects of New York's smoking ban, get angry, and then fight it: it's a bad law based on lies, not a proper law at all, and deserves no more respect than the enforcers and informers who make it possible.
Michael J. McFadden
Author of "Dissecting Antismokers' Brains"
http://encyclopedia.smokersclub.com/130.html
Great Article joshy
love the dickens out of you!
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