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This past Wednesday the Community Board 2 committee voted against a dance club at the corner of Front and Old Fulton streets in DUMBO. The cabaret license request was made by the owners of One Front restaurant, who want to add dancing to the 2nd floor of their establishment, which includes a restaurant on the ground floor and mezzanine.
Today the NY Post has some choice quotes from the meeting. Owner Marcelo Pevida said he wanted the cabaret license "to improve my establishment for our community.” But resident Gary Van der Putten explained: “what happens is that these kinds of places get cabaret licenses then, all of a sudden, they deteriorate into clubs.”
Somehow the city still insists on enforcing their prohibition-era cabaret law, which requires a special permit for any place that wants to have more than two people dancing. Residents of DUMBO asked how approving Pevida's license would benefit the community, to which he said it would give people a place to go dancing. The NIMBY's reply: “We don’t want to dance!”
Pevida will take his case to the full board next week. In the meantime, some people really need to watch Footloose.
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When I point out to people that New York City is the most conservative and socially controlled city in the nation, they look at me funny, but how the hell else do you explain needing a cabaret license?
thank you nyc for making nyc suck.
yeah because there is such a shortage of trashy clubs in new york.
Duckumu, the whole REASON all the dance clubs suck is because of cabaret laws. If ANYPLACE could have dancing, they wouldn't all have to cater to the lowest common denominator & try to fill the floor with...I already said lowest common denominator, which is another word for the trash that floods bars with dancing?
Don't live in a fantasy world: the cabaret laws are a hold-over from moralizing Prohibition BS. I'm about as boring a Brooklyn fuddy-duddy as they come, but the cabaret laws are dumb. There are better dance spots in OHIO. That is a big ole FAIL.
I know that the Cabaret law was challenged a few years back and held up in court. It's not about trying to keep people from "dancing," it's more about how we live in a very cramped city, and a cabaret license permits loud music. If there wasn't a need for this license, clubs would sprout up in a lot of places where it could be a serious detriment to people and be completely unregulated. Yes, the wording of the law is antiquated, and I have no idea if this particular establishment deserves the license or not, but any city should have the right to deny a club from spouting up.
"a cabaret license permits loud music."
No, it doesn't. A place with a cabaret license is subject to exactly the same noise abatement laws as a place without one. It does nothing except provide an exception to the restriction on dancing.
could dumbo be anymore fucking boring? this isn't a very residential corner either. theres plenty of foot traffic for grimaldis and russian wedding photo ops down at the pier. oh no, not dancing!
its not like the stroller pushers were going to be dancing all night.
suck it, dumbo.
1,2,4 bring up a good points. manhattan has been converted into the mall of america and brooklyn has become a glorified suburb with all it's tacky morals police.
fun has been essentially outlawed. while most of america is dialing back pot-persecution, under our last two mayors NYC has become one of the marijuana arrest capitals of the world -- with 40,300 arrests last year alone.
what's the deal?
Does anyone remember the gay club that used to be in that space? The #1 Hot Spot?
Dancing ruins everything.
Does every neighborhood need to be turned into a hotspot?
DUMBO is fucking boring, and that's fine with its residents, who like it because it's quiet and beautiful. If the owners of One Front genuinely think that the young moms and dads who make up most of their neighbors are actually going to come out dancing (i.e., the club is "for the community"), they're pathetically delusional.
What we need are Nimby bars where Nimbys can hang out, and not drink, and not dance, and not have a good time. But where Nimbys can enjoy the company of other Nimbys that feel satisfied that they have truly, finally...won.