There are only 69 venues in Manhattan where it’s legal to dance. Since the inception of the Cabaret Law in 1926 designed initially to curb public lewdness and interracial mixing, the laws were made tighter in the 80s by renewed building codes, neighborhood zonings and renewal laws. City wide there are 148 cabaret licenses and that includes adult entertainment, hotels, and restaurants.
The Cabaret law forbids any type of dancing at any establishment not licensed by the city to allow such practice. So essentially that booty shaking you do at your local bar’s jukebox is essentially illegal and could land the bar several hundred dollars in fines if the authorities choose to enforce the law.
These laws are antiquated and serve little public good as it’s the noise laws that regulate the club and bars of New York, not the cabaret laws when it seems now, only serve as another method to “tax” nightlife establishments.
This month, organizers of the upcoming 1st annual “Dance Parade” kicks off on May 19th and they expect to gather about 6300 dancers of all types for a festival/protest of sorts to bring awareness to this ridiculous law. Kicking off with a parade down Broadway and ending in Tompkins Square Park (tentative change to Washington Square park?), expect to have DJs Kool Herc, Danny Tenaglia, John “Jellybean” Benitez and more spin house, dance and all types of tracks to get your feet moving for the repeal cause.