This came across on a mailing list I'm on, and I figured everybody else might be interested in it. It is somewhat hearsay, because I haven't seen legislation or a formal release yet, but it's a big step in the right direction. Keep an eye out for more news today.:

The Department of Consumer Affairs held a meeting yesterday previewing their cabaret reform bill, which they plan to unveil at a press conference later today (2 p.m. at the Knitting Factory). Eric and I were at the preliminary meeting, and at this juncture, the news looks pretty damn good, but it's hard to know how it'll all play out and we want to temper our initial enthusiasm by the knowledge of how real politik works - you just don't get something for nothing -- especially in this city...

The good news is that the DCA are completely getting rid of the cabaret laws and dancing will no longer be a part of any DCA licensing process. There will be no "dance police" or enforcement of dance laws from the DCA. This is seemingly a HUGE step in the right direction for us. If this reform bill passes the city council, dancing will never be enforced as it has been over the last six or so years.

Dancing, however, will still be subject to fire code and zoning laws, which means dancing can still only "legally" happen, as I understand it, in manufacturing zones (or perhaps mix use zones), and if your establishment meets a higher fire code standard. Nobody knows how strictly -- or even if -- these codes will be enforced. But DCA will have nothing to do with enforcing these codes.

The bigger obstacle for clubs in the new reform plan is that they are proposing Nightlife Licensing scheme if your establishment meets all three of the following criteria:
1. You serve food or drink
2. You're open after 1:00 a.m.
3. You chose to be louder than 90 decibels (w/ a meter reading 3 feet from the transducer/speaker).

That means pretty much every music venue or dance club in the city.

If you meet all three conditions you will have to get a Nightlife License that makes sound proofing/certification by a professional sound engineer (which they will define) necessary. Dancing is not a trigger for the license. Also any place over 200 people in a commercial/manufacturing zone will have to get a license. There will also be sanitation requirements, security requirement for bigger clubs (499 and above I think), and you'll have to conform to DEP (environmental protection's) outside noise standards which are seemingly being updated. The DCA will have new power to padlock if you get your licensed pulled three times in two years (i think..). They also want to have a flexible licensing system where stipulations can be added to licenses for places that get violations and are up for rewnewal.

So, the long and the short of all this is that after years of hard work on legalizing dance in NYC we are one major step closer to seeing that become a reality so there's good cause for some celebration. While nothing is final yet, the DCA are finally extricating themselves from regulating dance and they were the ones actively enforcing the laws during this stupid period in NYC's social/cultural history. If this proposal passes the city council (which it still must do) it should be easier for people to dance at most places. It's important to keep in mind that through zoning laws (why zone dance?) or fire laws (we obviously support all "reasonable" fire codes) the city, if it ever gets another Giuliani, still has a mechanism to penalize dancing.

It remains unclear how onerous the new licensing scheme will be on clubs. They claim their main goal is to control noise and have some efficient way to regulate nightlife, I'm afraid they may inadvertently make things harder for the "good" clubs as well.

As I heard it, the DCA plans to submit the bill to the City Council on 11/26, so we have a very small window of time to stake out our position.

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