The Cabaret Law: Twist and Shout a Message

The Cabaret Law: Twist and Shout a Message

Friday, March 16, 2012

As most of the world knows, New York City is the city that never sleeps. I've lived within city limits for several years to experience this first hand and can attest to that truth. One of the most popular ways to spend your night in Manhattan is at a bar, lounge or nightclub. Nearly every one of these locations will have music playing whether it's a jukebox, disc-jockey or by musicians on stage. With music comes people who like to dance. But hold on, you might be breaking the law if you try and cut a rug in NYC.

A few years ago the Dance Parade was established. During the after party, the announcer explained what the purpose of the parade was; to raise awareness of the NYC Cabaret Law. Not knowing what the law was, I did the first thing anyone would have done when they wanted to learn about something; I Googled it. However, it's not that easy. Most of what you find is how to obtain a Cabaret License and also other people complaining about the law but I couldn't find anything about the law itself. Incidentally, I contacted the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs as they are the people who handle the license, and they have yet to respond since contacting them in early February. In short, you require this license to allow people dance socially within your establishment.

Apparently, there was a court hearing in 2006 that was against the law. This decision probably had some correlation with the parade, as they happened in the same time frame. Within the documentation, it mentions what is commonly known as the Cabaret Law; Section 20-360 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York:

b. A membership corporation, club, association or society which permits musical entertainment, singing, dancing or other form of amusement in premises wherein food or drink is directly or indirectly sold to its members, or their guests, or to the public, shall be deemed to be conducting a cabaret hereunder.

The first part of the 2006 court hearing it explains how there are two types of dancing; performance & recreational. Performance dancing is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution as decided under Barnes v. Glen Theatre Inc. in 1991 as it conveys a message "within the outer perimeters of the First Amendment." Recreational (or social) dancing was found not to convey a message as per verdict via Jarman v. Williams in 1985. Because recreational dancing does not convey a message, it was not protected by the constitution and subject to local laws. The second part of the court hearing explains why regulations for social dancing are necessary for night life establishments (otherwise defined as cabarets by the Department of Consumer Affairs), as inspections are required to maintain egress and safety.

The Plaintiffs defended the first part of the hearing by attempting to explain what message their social dance conveys. They claim that social dancing expresses the joy of people in shared experience, and, as a social ritual, is an expression of the culture that does the dance. However, in the verdict of Dallas v. Stanglin in 1989, it was recognized that all conduct is expressive. What matters is if dancing conveys a message.

Jumping out of the courtroom, it has been a socially accepted idea that the way a man dances has a direct correlation to how well he performs in bed. The better they dance vertically, the better they dance horizontally. Recently, there have been experiments to attempt to prove this. The first experiment I heard about was by Dr. Nick Neave who had men dance to music and then made 3D models of them to remove their defining physically features. Then women were asked to choose the most desirable man, while other activity was monitored such as where their eyes focused on the moving body. As you would expect the women chose the best dancing figure but one of the spots they focused on was the speed of the movements of the right knee.

The second experiment I found was by Dr. Peter Lovatt who went a step further by measuring testosterone levels of males and "...found that men with high levels of the sex hormone testosterone dance differently to men with low levels of testosterone and, most importantly, women prefer the dancing of high testosterone men. Now, if we couple this with the finding that the female sexual partners of high testosterone men report having more orgasms during sex than the sexual partners of low testosterone men we can see how dancing style is well worth looking at when we are looking for a mate."

What I've concluded from these experiments that occurred after the 2006 court decision is that dancing is equated to sexual performance. Dancing sends messages to potential mates that they are sexually proficient than other males. In contrast, and perhaps in my own observation, location and music are especially important for this to occur. Imagine what you may think of someone dancing without music. Would they be attractive or would you consider them two fries short of a Happy Meal? I believe if more studies are completed in the field of ethnochoreology, the law may have a chance of being considered unconstitutional.

But for now when the music plays, watch where you step in New York City.