“About a month ago, the city of New York repealed its cabaret law, which banned dancing in any place that didn’t have a license. It was enacted in 1926, a year after the Charleston craze swept the speakeasies of Harlem, and was enforced mainly to suppress gatherings that police found undesirable. Not surprisingly, the New York City Cabaret Law made an indelible mark on music history. The effects of the law were far-reaching. Licenses were expensive and hard to get; other than in about 100 legal New York cabarets, a club faced fines if a patron decided to get up and dance. And they were only allowed a maximum of three musicians. It wasn’t just establishments that were targeted, either. Musicians needed a Cabaret license to play clubs. This meant having a clean police record, which can be problematic; some of the greatest luminaries of jazz - Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Chet Baker, Billie Holiday - went through periods of not being able to gig in their own town”

“Managers of bars and nightclubs in Chelsea are pleased they can let their customers get their dance on, now that the city has repealed the Cabaret Law. Because of the law, which the City Council overturned last month after 91 years on the books, dancing was prohibited in all New York City public spaces that sold food and/or drinks unless the establishment had a cabaret license. Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the repeal into law last week, and now small Chelsea venues can let their customers hit the dance floor without fear of repercussion. At Café Nunez, patrons have already taken advantage of the repeal. Blue and green lights illuminated the dark back of the restaurant recently as customers danced to loud music. “You can’t really stop customers from dancing,” Yineidy Aramboles, general manager of Café Nunez on West 35th Street, says. “So it’s very hard as a business to tell customers not to dance when you have music.””

“At the House of Yes, a cavernous dance space in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the owners threw out a towering stack of paperwork — their application for a cabaret license. At Muchmore’s, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the owner announced he would drop a lawsuit against New York City after being fined for allowing patrons to sway gently during a rock show. But by far the most popular way of celebrating the repeal of the 91-year-old Cabaret Law, which had made it illegal for venues in New York City to allow dancing without a special license, was to hit the dance floor. “There was a huge dance party here,” said Rachel Nelson, the founder of Secret Project Robot, a nonprofit art space with a bar in Bushwick, and one of the people behind a grass-roots effort to have the law repealed. After more than a decade of worrying about dancing at the venue, Ms. Nelson said it was “a little surreal” to watch visitors dance on Friday without feeling a pang of anxiety.”

“A nearly century-old law that turned New York bars into no-dancing zones, prevented singers like Billie Holiday and Ray Charles from performing and drew protest from Frank Sinatra, is finally set to be struck down. The Cabaret Law was created during Prohibition to patrol speakeasies, and while its restrictions on musicians came and went, the ban on social dancing has remained — leaving generations of club owners flicking the lights or playing “Eleanor Rigby” to still the crowd, lest they be fined or padlocked by the police in midnight raids. It is an odd and archaic regulation in a city that thinks of itself as a night life capital, but one that has resisted multiple attempts at repeal.”

“Supporters of the cabaret law repeal were present in droves. Some were merely New Yorkers that loved dancing, others were business owners or DJs. Several people who testified in June did so again, including attorney Jerry Goldman, Discwoman and Dance Liberation Network’s Frankie Hutchinson, bar owners Rachel Nelson and John Barclay, Local 802’s Christopher Caroll, and House Coalition DJ Ali Coleman. All had differing stories and perspectives, but all of them passionately articulated that fully repealing the cabaret law was the only logical step forward.”

“The DJ, producer and party organizer Ali Coleman, 51, is optimistic about the repeal of the cabaret law. “Most of the clubs that we went to 10, 15 and 20 years ago no longer exist, especially in Manhattan. Many of them couldn’t keep up with the skyrocketing rents, some of them were in neighbourhoods that are completely different now and the ones that came up in their places cater to the bottle crowd,” he says.”

““I choose to be an artist and play music, and I need a place to do that,” DJ Ali Coleman said. “And with this law, it’s making less and less of those places exist.” Coleman, who has been involved with the Dance Parade since its inception, easily details repeated times he’s seen venues shut down or interrupted. When “the lights come on,” he said, it only means trouble.”

““Is this the best town hall ever?!” yelled Anya Sapozhnikova, the founder of House of Yes, at a packed house in Bushwick’s Market Hotel last night. The crowd cheered, clapped and stamped their feet. Around 400 people had gathered to hear a motley crew of New York’s creatives and council members discuss the future of New York nightlife. DJ Ali Coleman was on the decks; Hip-hop legend Kurtis Blow the emcee; film director Charlie Ahearn showcased his polaroids on the big screen.”

“When it comes to New York’s clubbing history, DJ Ali Coleman has seen it all. The 51-year-old New Jersey native, a resident DJ with the local electronic music crew House Coalition, started throwing house parties in the ‘70s and has been involved in the city’s nightlife ever since. A few years after Coleman moved to New York in 1994, mayor Rudy Giuliani began an anti-nightlife crusade that nearly eradicated the city’s party scene. His main tool was the Cabaret Law, which requires clubs to have a permit to allow more than two people to dance at a time. Efforts to repeal the law started in the 90s, but Coleman didn’t join the fight until 2006, when a judge refused to overturn the regulation because he didn’t consider dancing at a party an expression of speech.”

“The City That Never Sleeps meets the Government That Always Grows. Mayor de Blasio went to a funky Brooklyn nightclub Tuesday night to sign a bill creating a new city agency — the Office of Nightlife, which is supposed to oversee clubs and cabarets. Despite the presence of community boards and the city’s own Department of Small Business Services, the mayor believes another layer of government is needed to deal with quality-of-life issues and to help keep struggling clubs from going under. “It’s pretty shocking — one in five small businesses have been lost in the last couple of decades in New York City,” said de Blasio during a festive bill signing event at the House of YES in Bushwick featuring legendary punk rock drummer Marky Ramone of The Ramones”

“In attendance for the ceremony were jazz musician Ron Carter and Ramones’ drummer Marky Ramone. “The punk movement was tremendously important and spoke to my heart and so many of the hearts of people around me,” de Blasio said. The setting seemed appropriate too: House of Yes, which hosts burlesque and dance parties, is a onetime DIY venue that went legit. “This is absolutely surreal to have the mayor getting ready in our dressing room getting ready, and to have cops in the house and to have government people and DJs and circus freaks and people who party for a living all in one place,” Anya Sapozhnikova of House of Yes told The NY Daily News. “Why should it be so surreal to have the arts and culture capital of the world be in support of the space that make this kind of art and culture?””

“Assuming a city council vote goes as it’s expected, New Yorkers will soon be getting their own City Hall advocate for sensible nightlife policies. A bill poised to pass the council later this afternoon would give Mayor de Blasio two months to appoint a Director of Nightlife, who will oversee the newly-established Office of Nightlife. The office of the "Night Mayor" — a preferable title, in our opinion, though we'd also accept Night Czar, Party Mayor, or The D.O.N. — is to act as a liaison between City Hall and New York's $10 billion nightlife industry, and to help resolve problems between venues and neighboring residents. The other purpose of this office, according to Councilmember Rafael Espinal, will be to serve on behalf of the city’s DIY venues, and to fight back against the archaic rules and arbitrary enforcement that threaten their survival.”

“On Thursday, the New York City Council approved a bill that will establish an Office of Nightlife and a Nightlife Advisory Board. Brooklyn Councilman Rafael Espinal spearheaded the measure, which is in direct response to the rapid closure of beloved clubs and music venues across his borough in recent years. The new law goes into effect in 60 days, by which time Mayor Bill de Blasio is required to appoint a director to oversee the new office (a Night King or Queen, if you will). The advisory board will consist of 12 members, eight of whom will be appointed by Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, with the other four appointments coming from the mayor.”

“When you think of a town that has banned dancing, you automatically think of Footloose. But what most people don’t know is that similar legislation has been on the books in New York City for the last century. And in the real law, Ren’s convincing line, “And there was a time for this law, but not anymore,” would be highly contested. The Cabaret law (which bans dancing in any establishment without a Caberet License) was enacted specifically in 1926 with the intention of cracking down on the African American jazz clubs in Harlem. The original law not only banned dancing but banned jazz instruments, too. It also prohibited more than three musicians from playing at a time in unlicensed clubs.”

“Just before 10 p.m. on Tuesday night, in front of a packed crowd at Bushwick's House of Yes, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a law establishing the country's first ever Office of Nightlife, to be headed by a yet-to-be named "Night Mayor." Addressing one hundred or so venue owners, promoters, party advocates and artists, including Marky Ramone, the mayor lamented the city's past harassment of nightlife, and promised that the new office would "wield tremendous power."”

“The Office of Nightlife and its advisory group will act as liaisons between various aspects of the nightlife industry and local communities, and are modeled after similar initiatives in London, Amsterdam and other European cities. Drafted by Brooklyn Council Member Rafael Espinal (D-37), a Bed-Stuy native first elected to the New York State Assembly at the age of 26 and currently in his first term as a council member, the bill is the first in a docket of legislation that aims to support the city's vibrant nightlife culture. De Blasio's signature was the culmination of advocacy that has spanned decades. But there is one more bill, also from Espinal and also dealing with nightlife in the city — No. 1652 — to push through City Hall, with the potential to address a pernicious, racially motivated law that has followed "fringe" musical scenes in the city for nearly a century.”

“Want to get paid to know everything about New York City nightlife? Mayor de Blasio has a job for you. Hizzoner signed a bill Tuesday to create an Office of Nightlife, tasked with helping the city's nightlife industry grow while managing community concerns. "The office will be led — I'm not going to announce any names yet, there is a massive competition going in — but the office will be led by someone who undoubtedly will be more popular than me and will wield tremendous power: the nightlife mayor," de Blasio said. The mayor signed the bill — at night, of course — at House of Yes, a Bushwick venue for art and music that in recent weeks hosted events dubbed "Pole Play Wednesday," and "Foreplay: Sensual Theatre."”

“DJ and party organiser Ali Coleman from House Coalition, who has been dancing in the city since the late 70s, says the law is being used today like it was in the nineties “with the task force [MARCH, or Multi-Agency Response to Community Hot Spots, which usually distributes Cabaret violations] coming in during peak hours of the parties and harassing owners and their patrons”. He adds: “Sometimes this harassment leads to owners of these smaller venues in Williamsburg, Bushwick, Crown Heights and the surrounding neighbourhoods to shut their doors.” This, he says, impacts not only venues but also their employees and patrons. Mixmag has contacted NYPD, one of the agencies that comprises MARCH, and City Hall for comment.”

“The rich mix of people is what makes this such a power place." This line stood out in an article written by Bruce Tantum in Time Out NY's "Race Issue", (Aug. 23-29, Issue No. 621) about the emerging trend in New York's underground nightlife-where all races and creeds party as one in peace, love and harmony. Approximately one week later, we read an email from Ali Coleman (Voice of Voice NY) where he wrote about "such great Love-Energy over all the years". This brought us back to thinking about the aforementioned quote and has been the inspiration for the upcoming collaboration called "Spin City, NY." The concept behind this collaboration is centered on bringing together a few of New York's multi-cultural dance parties. Those represented will be ALMA, Libation, The Melting Pot NYC, Soulgasm NYC, Voice of Voice NY.”

“Time Out says Thu Mar 15 2012 Now in its fifth year, this unpretentious Labor Day hoedown features an all-star array of local soulful-dance-music mavens—Voice of Voice's Ali Coleman, Face the Bass Radio's Jose G, Save the Robots' Siren, Art for Progress's Kyle McNeil, Soul Fire's Dawn Anesta, Daily Session's Monchan, and Eddie S the Dancing DJ—along with platefuls of tasty grilled vittles.”

“Venerable soulful-house acolyte Markus Rice and his guests—at this installment, Voice of Voice's Ali Coleman—take over the cozy club Sapphire for this monthly tea dance.”

“An offshoot of Ali Coleman's long-running Voice of Voice affair, Zooties sees the underground-scene stalwart, DJ Siren and others spinning all things deep and soulful.”