No Dancing! ???

According to recent news, there's a ban on "Social Dancing" in New York City. It's a prohibition-era law apparently now being enforced by the "Cabaret Division" of the city's consumer affairs office. Remind you of an old Simpson's episode, or what? It's hard to gather from the AP reports exactly what is going on here, but it seems that under the guise of protecting neighborhoods from too much noise the city wants to close some doors. So their way in is to require licenses for dance clubs, which allows them to limit where they are and when they operate.

But what problem are they really trying to solve? Here's a quote from Mayor Giuliani from the CNN article:

It's a quality-of-life issue, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani says.

"It's a good thing," he adds. "And if we were to move away from it because there's some pressure, because a couple of high-profile places are putting the squeeze on, you're going to see real difficulties in the neighborhoods in the city."

It's already being tested in court by a place called the Gotham West Coast Swing Club. My mind in the gutter as usual suspected they were the ones the city was targeting due to some ethical issues (read "swingers" here). But this is a real dance group with an interest in something close to the Lindy Hop you've seen in lots of old movies. So this is just an interested party working to keep doing what they're doing without going to the city for a license.

I have to assume now that there are some very specific neighborhood spots that the city is upset with, but have no other means other than enforcing an odd 80 year old law that disrupts enjoyment for a much wider group of the community. I'm interested to see this enforced.