Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PRESENTATION
Proposal 9: Allow dancing and entertainment in more venues
0:43:12
·
3 min
Proposal 9 would allow dancing, comedy and other live entertainment in eating/drinking establishments up to 200 persons in C1/C2 districts. Currently, live music is allowed in such venues but dancing is restricted. The proposal would treat dancing, music and comedy the same in zoning. Modifications were made to address enforcement of the 200 person limit.
Some quotes:
- "In any bar or restaurant in New York City today, you can have live musical entertainment like a concert so long as you're below 200 people. But the zoning of New York City often prohibits people from dancing to that music, or from having a live comedy or an open mic night in that same space."
- "We're simplifying the rules of that music/dancing/comedy. They're all treated the same in zoning while removing the last parts of the discriminatory cabaret laws that prohibited the act of dancing."
- "But most importantly here and the way that I think about this is if you're allowed to have musical entertainment in the venue up to two hundred people, you would now be allowed to also dance with that same music in that same venue."
Dan Garodnick
0:43:12
Next proposal.
0:43:14
Number 9.
0:43:15
Halfway there.
0:43:17
Dancing.
0:43:20
In any bar or restaurant in New York City today, you can have live musical entertainment like a concert.
0:43:28
So long as you're below 200 people.
0:43:31
But the zoning of New York City often prohibits people from dancing to that music, or from having a live comedy or an open mic night in that same space.
0:43:45
We're simplifying the rules of that music dancing comedy.
0:43:48
They're all treated the same in zoning while removing the last parts of the discriminatory cabaret laws that prohibited the act of dancing.
0:43:59
In C1C2 Districts, We wanna allow dancing comedy and open mics up to two hundred people in the same way that musical entertainment is is allowed today.
0:44:07
Musical entertainment, it's allowed today.
0:44:09
Up to two hundred people.
0:44:10
That's the rule today.
0:44:11
And we're just saying in this proposal, if musical entertainment is allowed, people should be able to stand up and dance and not have it be a zoning violation.
0:44:20
Similarly, an open mic night or a poetry reading, those sorts of things are similarly appropriate in a context where you were otherwise allowed to have live music in an up to 200 person venue.
0:44:35
Okay.
0:44:35
Let's go to the illustration here.
0:44:37
Next slide.
0:44:39
Okay.
0:44:39
This is the example of today's context in a c 2 overlay district, which is a common one for an eating or drinking establishment.
0:44:52
So just to illustrate this for you.
0:44:55
A bar with a bar restaurant with live music, that is okay today in a c 2 district.
0:45:02
A bar with a ticketed musical entertainment.
0:45:07
So you can buy a ticket to go see musical entertainment in a bar today up to two hundred people.
0:45:13
That's allowed today.
0:45:15
Some question about bar or restaurant, either of those examples with incidental dancing if you stand up and dance or some question.
0:45:23
Is that allowed or is that not allowed in zoning?
0:45:26
And lastly, it is just not permitted to have dancing in a bar or restaurant where dancing is commons.
0:45:34
You cannot actually operate that.
0:45:37
Let's go to the next slide, which gives you the example of where we would make a change.
0:45:43
No change here on the bar restaurant with live music in any capacity.
0:45:46
No change.
0:45:48
Next category bar with ticketed musical entertainment up to 200 person.
0:45:53
Capacity.
0:45:54
No change.
0:45:55
You can still do that.
0:45:56
The ambiguous area, the bar or restaurant with incidental dancing, but we would clarify that incidental dancing is permitted And lastly, we would permit dancing as a common activity in a bar or restaurant.
0:46:12
That is okay.
0:46:15
And should be okay under the zoning resolution.
0:46:18
Let's go to the next slide.
0:46:19
We did make some modifications Here, we'd heard that routine or non incidental dancing could bypass the 200 person sized threshold by not having a cover charge or a specified show time.
0:46:32
So we inserted language that the presence of a dance floor is evidence that an eating or drinking establishment is providing entertainment, give enforcement agencies an additional tool indicator to determine if a business is in violation of zoning.
0:46:47
But most importantly here and the way that I think about this is if you're allowed to have musical entertainment in the venue up to two hundred people, You would now be allowed to also dance with that same music in that same venue.
0:47:01
No change in capacity.
0:47:02
No change in opportunity otherwise.
0:47:05
And we think that that is a smart rational change.