Bars in NYC to close at 1:00am???

[The Brain]

Originally posted by IrishAlkey
I'd say that's a tad extreme.

Well, of course. What I wrote would be the final stages. But all these draconian rules begin <i>somewhere</i>, don't they?

<marquee><b><font color=red size=+1>WARNING!!11 Long post to follow... people with attention deficit disorder should read this in small doses.</font></b></marquee>

The Disney-fication of Times Square. New regulations and zoning laws on so-called XXX-businesses, even within respect to each other as opposed to residential areas, schools, or churches.

Banning smoking indoors, except for cigar bars and their ilk, or where the owner can prove that customers being allowed to smoke is vital for business, as opposed to a simple luxury... how soon before there is an attempt at outright prohibition on smoking?

Extremism does not occur overnight; there is a gradual process where government takes an inch, before realizing they can take the mile with it. The Prohibition amendment on alcohol was created to reduce crimes and corruption, and improve overall social conditions (sound familiar?). It was eventually repealed because it <i>increased</i> corruption, and worsened social conditions as people turned to harder, already illegal substances, bootlegging, and speakeasy bars.

But times have changed. We live in a more politically correct world, where someone's vices are treated in a clinic rather than accomodated. It's easier to close down strip clubs and peepshows today than the cabarets of yesteryear simply because people who attend such places can't (or won't) complain out of fear of embarrassment for perceived wrongdoing. You and I know there's nothing wrong with these places (hell, we've been in them on more than one occasion), but we don't make it a point to broadcast the fact around our neighborhoods, because it leaves us open to public scrutiny and possible ridicule. After all, who in their "right mind" would support such salacious activities as lap dances and public displays of nudity?

So lawmakers will continue to push, a bit at a time. The question is, where would it stop? How much vice will they allow us adults to maintain? Will New York eventually adopt <a href=http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/West/11/04/dance.vote.ap/ target=new>Los Angeles' lap dance laws, which keep dancers <i>six feet</i> away from customers' laps?</a> Or would constant new wrinkles in re-zoning eventually lead to all the businesses being driven away or closing simply because they no longer have a legal spot to set up shop? Remember, this city does not have the luxury of Amsterdam's Red Light district, where people can go and accomodate their desires in one area, without have any outside affect elsewhere in the city.

Will people still be allowed to smoke outdoors, or will that eventually be banned as well? Would there even be any smokers left because they have all been inconvenienced into quitting, or resorting to smoke in the privacy of their homes, rather than going out and spending money, which is where the real focus should be?

Finally, if this basic "curfew" on bars is set at 1am now, how soon down the road before they try to push it up to midnight? If that succeeds, then when does the attempt to make NYC a "dry county" occur, because that's the inevitable next step.

Yes, I know, I know, it seems too drastic, right? Enough people don't mind these things, or find them offensive enough, to want them gone, do they?

But that's not the public who the government listens to. The public who, for example, weren't offended by Janet Jackson's nipple didn't call CBS to voice their concerns. In the end, CBS (and subsequently, the FCC) heard from the minute few who hated what occurred. Not from the thousands (or perhaps millions) who neither cared, or actually enjoyed witnessing that sort of spectacle.

Then take note of the draconian overreaction that followed: <a href=http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/7877967.htm target=new>Jackson's banning from the Grammys</a>, <a href=http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/7874910.htm target=new>NFL Commsioner Taglibue preventing Timberlake's N'Sync buddy from hosting the Pro Bowl halftime show</a>... and tell me where do you think it will end. At what point will the government believe they have stepped in far enough, and at what point will that decision already be too late?