Dance activists file lawsuit to reform cabaret laws

Subject: I should support Siegel after this?
Date: 7/8/2005 12:33:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: tenant@tenant.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)


NB-
My two cents:
Siegel's efforts are misplaced. Siegel and the Dance Liberation fanatics
see this as a first amendment issue, but their Conga lines in residential
neighborhoods make clear it's not about an uptight society preventing
patrons from grooving to a jukebox in an otherwise quiet corner
neighborhood bar.

It's about what they do outside the bars and the impact outside the bars.
Many activist will be the first to agree the objections are not to dancing,
but to noise, open windows, loud speakers, overflowing outdoor cafes, the
bridge and tunnel crowds, the bar crawl or bar hopping, the patrons
congregating on sidewalks, etc. It's also about some areas becoming hip,
creating a real estate market that forces out small retail stores to be
replaced by hip and tourist lounges with open doors and loud music. There
ought to be places for people to boogie, but not my corner bar or on the
first floor of a residential building.

The community boards, the SLA, the DCA, the police and City Council have
all demonstrated they are not willing to do anything serious about the problem.

While the Cabaret Laws have a questionable history and have been misused,
they do provide some limitations and if just lifted, could open the
floodgates to larger and noisier nightspots in residential areas. Dance
floors in some spots could take up a few hundred feet, adding pressure to
such places to create a rationale to seek sidewalk cafes, or for pushing
patron waiting areas (the lines) outside on the sidewalk. While Siegel
claims the problems should be addressed through other means, they aren't
offering those other means. It behooves them to come up with ways to solve
the problems.

While I tend to like Norman, and am not impressed by Gotbaum, he is way off
base here. He might be losing my vote.



Volume 75, Number 7 July 6 - 12, 2005

Dance activists file lawsuit to reform cabaret laws
By Johanna Petersson
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_114/danceactivists.html


Like a conga line that got lost, the dance liberation movement took a
hiatus for a year or two, but, like Tony Manero at 2001 Odyssey, they just
couldn�t stay away.

Norman Siegel, former head of the New York Civil Liberties who is making
his second run for public advocate, has gone to court to defend the right
to boogie in bars. Two weeks ago, Siegel filed a lawsuit against the
Department of Consumer Affairs, Department of Buildings, City Planning
Commission and the city of New York challenging as arbitrary the city�s
zoning restrictions on dancing, as well as claiming that prohibiting
people�s right to dance is unconstitutional.

Siegel has teamed up with law professor Paul Chevigny, a New York
University law professor who 13 years ago won a case in State Supreme Court
that partially changed the city�s cabaret laws. Representing the musicians�
union, Chevigny succeeded in getting abolished the musicians� clause that
prohibited more than three musicians from playing together ­ as well as
drums and horns being played ­ in live-music venues without cabaret licenses.

The plaintiffs in the current suit include Meredith Stead, a social dancing
teacher who instructs in such styles as waltz, foxtrot and Latin; John
Festa, a West Coast swing dancer; Gotham West Coast Swing Club; Bryan Cox,
who teaches house dance; and Ian Dutton, a social dancer in the
goth/industrial community.

In New York, the city that never sleeps and often regarded as the nightlife
capital of the world, it is currently illegal to move one�s feet from side
to side, get jiggy with it, shake one�s booty or move in any other way that
might be interpreted as dancing in a restaurant or bar that doesn�t have a
cabaret license.

There are at present 212 cabaret licenses issued in the five boroughs, and
they are restricted under the city�s zoning to areas zoned Use Group 12,
such as manufacturing-zoned areas.

But Siegel and the dance advocates are not down with that ­ and say people
should be able to get down freely. Restricting social dancing is a
restriction of freedom of expression, the lawsuit argues.

�The time has come,� Siegel said, �to let New Yorkers fully enjoy their
constitutional right to dance.�

Siegel and the cabaret law reform advocates say the current laws have
nothing to do with dancing but were revived during the Guiliani years as a
way to control noise and overcrowding, issues they say should be addressed
through other means.

A couple of years ago, then-Consumer Affairs Commissioner Gretchen Dykstra
expressed hopes that a new system of nightlife regulations on noise, unruly
crowds and dirty sidewalks would replace the laws against dancing. A public
hearing was held, but since then Consumer Affairs has been silent on the
issue.

According to nightlife industry sources, the Bloomberg administration was
reluctant to push Dykstra�s cabaret law reforms after only just recently
having instituted the smoking ban ­ mainly because operators feared the
administration was going to push for a 1 a.m. closing time, and were ready
to revolt. Dykstra has since moved on to head up the World Trade Central
Memorial Foundation.

�This issue has just dragged on for years and years,� Chevigny said, �and
now we came up with a theory of challenging it as an issue of free
expression under the state constitution.�

Plaintiff Dutton is a pilot who lives in Soho and is a public member of
Greenwich Village�s Community Board 2. He is a founder of Contempt, a
nonprofit collective that sponsors goth/industrial dances.

�We have had problems finding a place because places with cabaret licenses
prefer events with big spenders,� he said. �My friends and I don�t order
bottles of champagne ­ we just want to have an event where our kind of
music is played. Also, we have had problems in the past with having to move
places because of the cabaret license laws and inspectors coming in.�

Dutton and his friends organize a monthly dance club at a location in the
Village which doesn�t have a cabaret license. The trouble with challenging
the Cabaret License Law, said Dutton, is that some people feel the
community is loosing out on deciding what kind of bars and restaurants are
opening up in the neighborhood. But he feels the community board by
advising on liquor license applications gives the community full
opportunity to voice its concerns.

�Just because people might be dancing, doesn�t mean that a place is good or
bad,� he said. �I live on Sullivan St. and we have had a bar that played
loud music, and often with its windows open ­ no one was dancing there ­
but they were still not a great neighbor to have.�

Dating from the Prohibition era, the 1926 Cabaret License Law requires any
nightlife spot that wants to host dancing to hold a city-issued cabaret
license. A D.C.A. spokesperson said the department has no comment on
whether it is considering changing the current cabaret laws. �The Cabaret
License Law is currently in force, and we enforce it,� the spokesperson
said. �We received the complaint in this action and we are preparing our
response.� The parties were to appear in court on June 29 to schedule the
submission of both sides� papers to the court.