# New York set to finally repeal its crazy 'no dancing in bars' law...



## editor (Oct 30, 2017)

At last! It was so weird DJing bars in New York and having no one dance because of this mad law.



> nearly century-old law that turned New York bars into no-dancing zones, prevented singers like Billie Holiday and Ray Charles from performing and drew protest from Frank Sinatra, is finally set to be struck down.
> 
> The Cabaret Law was created during Prohibition to patrol speakeasies, and while its restrictions on musicians came and went, the ban on social dancing has remained — leaving generations of club owners flicking the lights or playing “Eleanor Rigby” to still the crowd, lest they be fined or padlocked by the police in midnight raids. It is an odd and archaic regulation in a city that thinks of itself as a night life capital, but one that has resisted multiple attempts at repeal.
> 
> That is expected to end on Tuesday, when a bill introduced by Rafael Espinal, a councilman from Brooklyn, comes before the City Council. Mr. Espinal, who embraced an effort by advocates in his district, which includes Bushwick, where bars and D.I.Y. venues have proliferated in recent years, says he has the 26 votes needed to pass it.





> In New York City, only 97 out of roughly 25,000 eating and drinking establishments have a cabaret license. Obtaining one is costly and time-consuming, requiring the approval of several agencies, and only businesses in areas zoned for commercial manufacturing are eligible. Though the law has not been aggressively enforced since the Giuliani administration, it keeps bar and club owners “living in fear,” said Mr. Espinal, and pushes dancers from safe, regulated spaces into potentially hazardous underground ones.


After 91 Years, New York Will Let Its People Boogie


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## Slo-mo (Jan 28, 2018)

Did this pass, I wonder? 

Until quite recently puritanical types have always had a certain *thing* about dancing as something that needs to be tightly controlled. Not something you can put your finger on, but certainly something.

Possibly it's a very deep rooted thing indeed, going back to the days of rituals to invoke the devil, or perhaps I am over analysing.


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## Nivag (Jan 28, 2018)

It was but places still need to be in the right zone according to this link
Nighttime NYC: Law’s Repeal Alone Won’t End City’s Dance Drought


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## Baronage-Phase (Jan 28, 2018)

Slo-mo said:


> Did this pass, I wonder?
> 
> Until quite recently puritanical types have always had a certain *thing* about dancing as something that needs to be tightly controlled. Not something you can put your finger on, but certainly something.
> 
> Possibly it's a very deep rooted thing indeed, going back to the days of rituals to invoke the devil, or perhaps I am over analysing.



Really?
Never heard that before.....


I wonder what these puritanical types make of Irish dancing.


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## Pickman's model (Jan 28, 2018)

PippinTook said:


> Really?
> Never heard that before.....
> 
> 
> I wonder what these puritanical types make of Irish dancing.


I thought Irish dancing was tightly controlled, none of that flinging arms about and certainly no putting fingers on other people


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## Pickman's model (Jan 28, 2018)

PippinTook said:


> Really?
> Never heard that before.....
> 
> 
> I wonder what these puritanical types make of Irish dancing.


They're quite catholic in their opposition to dancing


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## Baronage-Phase (Jan 28, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> They're quite catholic in their opposition to dancing



Clever clogs


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## Slo-mo (Jan 28, 2018)

PippinTook said:


> Really?
> Never heard that before.....
> 
> 
> I wonder what these puritanical types make of Irish dancing.


It's one of the key defining features of the original puritans. And it's my personal opinion they never really got over it.

Sunday dancing was only legalised in the UK in 1998 for example.


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## petee (Jan 28, 2018)

Slo-mo said:


> It's one of the key defining features of the original puritans. And it's my personal opinion they never really got over it.
> 
> Sunday dancing was only legalised in the UK in 1998 for example.



ah - so actual puritans. i know of no culture that doesn't have dancing, and tbh, putting the movements into patterns is no more controlling than putting words into meter to make poetry. some of the time it's story-telling which will (usually) require stylized movement.

fun fact: in ancient greek the word for "dance" was also slang for "fuck".


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