Let’s Dance

It is not clear how many people realize this, but it’s a fact: dancing in most of New York City’s bars is illegal. Even if the music’s blasting and playing “Saturday Night Fever’s” soundtrack. This according to an old, Prohibition-era cabaret law, that forbids three or more people dancing, unless the establishment they shake a leg in has a special, difficult to obtain and pricey, license. According to the Daily News, mayor Bloomberg wants to give us a chance to dance freely. “We either want to eliminate the license or establish a different one so that it would be less onerous for people to engage in dancing,” said the newspaper’s source close to the mayor. “New York is the only city in the world where there is a law that makes dancing illegal,” said John McGarvey, a spokesman for Metropolis In Motion, a group fighting to change the law.

There are only 181 licensed cabarets in New York, according to Consumer Affairs, and most are limited to dance clubs in Manhattan. If one would like to know what’s the total number of bars serving liquor and playing music here in Manhattan, it would take a life time of research. But one thing is for sure: in a free country, dancing should be free, too.