Buttwhack Dance Law

“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. (Writing in The Times, Barbara Ehrenreich noted that “disputes over who can dance, how and where, are at least as old as civilization, and arise from the longstanding conflict between the forces of order and hierarchy on the one hand, and the deep human craving for free-spirited joy on the other.”)

Even ardent Community Board members who favor tough enforcement of noise restrictions usually agree that the anti-dancing law seems rather archaic. (Last year, opponents of the law staged a Dance Parade to assert the right to move their feet.) The Bloomberg administration seems to agree.

After 82 years, the no-dancing rules are still on the books, but The Daily News reported on Monday that the Bloomberg administration has started a new effort to amend the law.

Mayor Bloomberg considered changing the law soon after taking office in 2002, and in late 2003, after considerable internal debate among mayoral advisers, his administration proposed replacing the cabaret license with a more general “nightlife license” for all bars, clubs and restaurants that can hold more than 75 patrons in residential neighborhoods, and more than 200 in commercial neighborhoods, and that stay open past 1 a.m. and have substantial noise. In addition, the proposal would have required many bars and clubs that choose to get a night life license to pay for soundproofing.

That effort fell apart after bars and nightclubs rose up in opposition, contending that the mayor’s real goal was to push ahead the closing time to 1 a.m. from 4 a.m. for nearly all establishments and that the proposal would make it easier for the city to revoke the licenses of — and even shut down — bars, clubs and restaurants. The bar and nightclub owners were also angry over the citywide smoking ban pushed through by the mayor in 2002.

The balance between fostering a vibrant nightlife and maintaining the peace and quiet of neighborhoods has never been easy to strike.

Mayor James J. Walker signed the cabaret law on Dec. 16, 1926. The origins of the law have been explained in various ways, among them community opposition to the excessive partying of the Jazz Age and efforts to discourage interracial dating, which became more common during the Harlem Renaissance.

In 1988, Mayor Edward I. Koch unsuccessfully proposed requiring new nightclubs with a capacity of more than 150 people to close by 12:30 a.m. on weeknights and 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, unless they got a special zoning permit or were in areas where no residential use was allowed.

But it was Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani who made the cabaret law a regular subject of bar and nightclub conversations once again. Mr. Giuliani used the law again and again to crack down on what he considered to be neighborhood nuisances.

In one of the more prominent cases, in 1998, his administration filed suit to shut down a popular Chelsea nightclub, Twilo, deeming it a public nuisance. The city lost that suit. But refused to renew the club’s cabaret license on grounds that it was a marketplace for the drugs ecstasy and G.H.B., or gamma hydroxybutyrate. That approach prevailed and Twilo’s cabaret license was yanked in 2001.

Meanwhile, establishments have found numerous ways to flout the cabaret law. Clubs wired warning lights into D.J. booths, installed secret buttons to cut the music and sent employees to scout the streets for police squads and relay information over walkie-talkies.

Even as the dancing restrictions have been decried as outdated, nightlife establishments continue to pose quality-of-life challenges. Angered by high-profile crimes at nightclubs, the City Council in 2006 approved legislation to curb underage drinking and tighten the background checks conducted of security workers at the clubs.