“The city should not be in the business of deciding what goes on, whether there is dancing or not dancing,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said in 2004. “We have dance police. This is craziness.”
The mayor was referring to the city’s 1926 cabaret law, which forbids dancing by three or more people in any establishment that does not have a valid cabaret license — even if the business serves alcohol and plays music. In the past, bars have been padlocked when a few patrons were caught swaying to music, and the Giuliani administration often used the law as a tool against clubs deemed nuisances.
It is a striking fact in the city that never sleeps that customers are allowed to get up and dance in fewer than 200 businesses.
A New Effort to End the ‘Dance Police’
title: Magnetic Field lyrics
image: Arthur Elgort, Vogue US September 2008
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