Whatever you think about the appropriate time for bars to close, can we all agree that a law barring dancing after 1a.m. is really stupid?
"Public dancing" is a pretty silly thing for a City Council to regulate. I hope the Council doesn't just adjust the time (to match the new 2a.m. bar closing time), but actually wipes the law off the books completely. In the mean time, I hope all you young kids out there take this opportunity to go out and break this particular law. That way when you have kids you can tell them harrowing tales about how when you were younger you rebelled against The Man by dancing after dark. They'll be impressed both by your moxie and the fact that you apparently grew up during the dark ages.
This little hiccup in the law isn't all fun and games. It illustrates how rushing to change one ordinance (bar closing times) can have unforeseen effects on other ordinances. At this point the City still doesn't know how many laws may be affected. In this particular circumstance the consequences of conflicting laws are likely pretty minor. Still, I hold that it's good practice to not rush changes unless it's absolutely necessary. Ensuring that folks can get drunk later into the night doesn't exactly fit the bill.
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It illustrates how rushing to change one ordinance (bar closing times) can have unforeseen effects on other ordinances.
I don’t think anything was “rushed.” The original law was proposed in the state legislature last January and the approval was given by the city council in August. That’s eight months.
If I remember correctly, the “big” push for a later closing time in Lincoln began in July. That’s closer to 6 weeks than 8 months. Even then, for many people the decision was already effectively made long before the final vote. They had already checked out of the discussion.
Either way, the fact that the Council didn’t understand the full impact of their decision illustrates that the process was “too fast”. Should they have been able to make this decision—a fully-informed, intelligent decision—in a day? Most certainly yes. But government processes often don’t work on the same time scales we do. This situation is one example of that.
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