By Sarah Garrecht
This article was written before the announcement that the Downtown Performance Center is closing on August 1. When you read this story you'll gain insight into the reasons why Steven Eye, director of the DPC, made the decision to close the all-ages venue. Take a look at Soundbites in this issue of Big Noise for more information on the DPC shutdown.
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM facing Tucson isn't violence, drugs, gangs or sexually transmitted diseases--it's dancing. That's right, dancing leads to a life of depravity and sorrow, and dancing with the wrong people is an act so horrific that Tucson has a law regulating it.
According to a July 5, 1994 ordinance, the Tucson City Council has deemed it illegal to have all-ages dance halls. Establishments may cater to the 14 to 18-year old high school set, the 18 to 21 college kids or adults 21 and over--but not a combination--leaving the undesirable kids with idle time and not much to do.
In an era when people are screaming at the polls for Big Government to get out of their lives, Tucson has taken the opposite track with an activity as seemingly inconsequential as dancing.
City prosecutor George Bromley says, "Historically, the reason for the ordinance is that sometimes the mixture of these different age groups without regulation and without restrictions has led to violence and things that have caused the police to have to be called.
"The other reason is that in terms of regulation, security, financial responsibility--all those considerations--that normally government-sponsored events are in a better position to handle those things," he says.
Big Brother knows what's best--unless he's in the wrong age group, of course.
Dancing, and the dance hall ordinance, is apparently more complex than it sounds. The city council divided people into age groups, and while these same people mix in school, restaurants, families and life, apparently dancing is what pushes them over the edge. Let a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old dance together at a non-government sponsored event, and all hell could break loose.
And that's what reportedly happened last summer on the east side.
Tucson has had a dance hall license ordinance since 1992, says Bromley, who penned both the ordinance and revision. However, the loopholes in that law allowed clubs to have all-ages dance nights, allowing people to intermingle.
Vice Mayor Janet Marcus says hundreds of people were congregating at the club in the parking lot at Tanque Verde and Wilmot roads, reportedly inciting crowd problems, shootings and damage to neighboring businesses. The situation was so out of hand that much of Tucson's police force was reportedly called to handle the melee, leaving the rest of the city without the thin blue line.
That's when she says the Tucson Police Department approached her and asked the city council to help because it had "no way to close down" the place, and didn't want to wait for a tragedy.
"The situation became so unmanag-able because it was a mixing of ages," Marcus says.
The solution to last summer's problem was to close the loophole
and segregate social dancing by age. The council voted 5-1 to
approve the measure; with Molly McKasson voting against the measure
and Steve Leal absent from the vote. Because of the apparent imminent
danger to the "peace, health and safety of the City of Tucson"
(the wording of the ordinance), an emergency situation was declared
and the ordinance became effective immediately. That vote passed
unanimously.
Steven Eye was arrested May 30, 1995 for alledgedly violating the dance hall ordinance at a May 27 concert at the Downtown Performance Center, which he operates. Eye did not get a dance hall license for the Propaganda Child concert, and now faces a $2,500 fine and a potential six months in the slammer if convicted of a misdemeanor.
\ "If there happened to be some people at a concert who got up and decided they wanted to dance a little bit, it's not intended to apply to that situation really," Bromley says. "If the purpose is to have a live band and dance, then it probably would apply. But if the purpose is to go and watch somebody perform in concert and just listen, then it probably wouldn't apply. If that makes sense.
"It's for places that the primary aim is to have people come and dance, and to make money from them doing it," Bromley says. "There is a separation, it just depends. In some cases (the police and city ) have to make decisions on an incident-by-incident basis."
Eye says that the purpose of the DPC is live music, and that there were fewer than 100 people at the fateful May 27 concert that landed him in handcuffs at the police station.
One other club-booking agent declined to talk to Big Noise about this issue, saying they may want to file for dance hall or other licenses in the future, and feared retribution from the police. Perhaps not so coincidentally, in researching this story, a police officer asked this reporter if a club owner had complained about the TPD enforcement of the ordinance.
There are exemptions to the ordinance: for government-sponsored dances, schools, non-profit groups or crowds of less than 100 dancers. Ninety-nine dancers of all ages is approved, while 101 people require city regulation.
The DPC is in the process of becoming non-profit, having finally raised enough money for the application fees. Eye says the Arizona Corporation Commission has officially recognized the DPC, and the next step is to approach the IRS for tax-exempt status. Eye hopes to have his papers in order before his July court date.
Oddly enough, age discrimination is illegal when hiring employees, but a person's social life doesn't enjoy the same protection.
"The city of Dallas adopted a similar ordinance several years ago, and it was challenged on 'freedom of association' all the way up to the Supreme Court, and it was upheld," Bromley says. "The Supreme Court said the legislature had rationale for its actions. I'm very confident that age separation is alright."
Vice Mayor Marcus admits that the dance hall measure isn't perfect,
but still defends it.
"It's true, there is a certain infringement on 'freedom of association,' " she says. "It was just an intolerable situation from all perspectives. You hate to establish limits, but sometimes you have to for the greater good.
"We felt, for public safety, that there needed to be some means of regulation, and that's where separation of ages comes in."
The eastside club that sparked this revision has since closed and is now a restaurant. Other clubs are left in its wake, faced with the realities of trying to run a profitable business with a reduced audience and being forced to segregate kids beyond what liquor laws require.
The age separation also pre-supposes criminal intent. Both Marcus and Bromley say that "older guys" would hang around and try to "pick up" young teen-age girls at all-age dance clubs--one of the reasons for refining the ordinance. Protecting people from danger is important, but to assume that one age group will automatically harm another, because of dancing, is open to interpretation, to say the least.
"People of any age can go to any sports event together, any mall, any park, anywhere, but they can't go dancing together," says Dick Plowman, who owns the Fine Line club and the Gargoyles coffee house. "It makes no sense."
So Tucson teenagers are left with fewer places to congregate, at least for dancing. The Fine Line used to be an all-ages place to dance, but Plowman had to change the rules and make it 18-and-over. It also features a separate bar for those 21 and up. This 18-and-over limit not only hurt him financially, but also gave Tucson teens one less place to hang out in a supervised setting.
"Adults really don't know what the kids are doing," Plowman says. "Kids are now doing exactly what they've always done--go out to the desert to drink and cruise Speedway--only more now.
"At the Line they'd dance their butts off all night long, and then they're tired and they go home. There's not a lot for them to do at night," he says.
As Plowman points out, the people left out in the cold don't just go away. And chances are they're probably not going to be satisfied sitting at home on the weekends, playing Monopoly with Mom and Dad.
"I think the ordinance dumps them all somewhere else and makes them someone else's problem. You can have a dance club and not have problems--you have to create an atmosphere where kids feel accepted and comfortable and not hating everything. You can't just stuff kids in the closet.
"Now they go to the illegal raves, private parties where liquor flows everywhere, drugs flow everywhere," Plowman says. "The locations of these places change so often so police can't track them. They can't exist in places too long."
Plowman laments the city's decision to crack down on supervised dance clubs, forcing kids to improvise their own entertainment.
Eye readily admits that he is not operating the DPC for his personal pleasure, and is busy enough with his sculpture work and teaching. But he thinks the DPC serves a purpose beyond being a live music venue.
"Where are all these kids going to go? Do we stand there and say 'Get the fuck out of here you homeless kids?' " he says.
"I'd rather close the door than get a dance hall permit," Eye says. "That's why we don't serve alcohol, so we don't discriminate against anyone."
The DPC is popular with homeless kids, people who have no other place to go and no money for sanctioned entertainment such as movies or bowling.
The Fine Line and DPC aren't the only clubs feeling pressure from this ordinance. Mark Oliver, who books bands at The Rock, says that club is deciding how to handle the issue.
"We have a couple under-21 shows planned, but we're not sure if we're going to do them," Oliver says.
Because the age restrictions cut down audience size, Oliver contends restricted concerts are not as profitable as all-age shows, which were never as lucrative as over-21 shows simply because of bar proceeds.
"The shows won't be all-ages, and ticket prices may be higher, or the shows won't happen at all," he says. "It's just one more way for you not to make money."
Governments are exempted from the dance hall ordinance, not only because the city has no authority over the state or county, but because government-sponsored events have ample security and supervision.
"The experience has been that those type of things (violence, etc.) were pretty much limited to commercially-run events and not to the other type of events," Bromley says.
While the city does provide an 18-and-under recreation facility during the summer by opening up Rillito Downs to teenagers, some say that kids need year-round places to hang out.
The Tucson Convention Center, a city-owned facility which regularly houses concerts where dancing could occur at any moment, is also exempt from the dance hall ordinance. Bromley says that if a promoter rents the TCC for an event, he or she would need a permit, but the TCC does not.
Marcus also says that government entities, such as the county, have excellent security and follow many of the ordinance's provisions on their own.
This logic worries some club owners and smacks of economic unfairness. The city has a police force for protection and security, the money to run youth activities at prices that can undercut private clubs--and none of the age restrictions, thanks to the self-exemption.
Gargoyles, which is now a coffee house featuring live music, was a teen dance club for a short time, owner Plowman says. He says it wasn't a success because "kids are so used to not having anything to do that it's almost impossible to get them out."
Government-sponsored facilities are able to keep cover charges dirt cheap, which is good for the crowds, but discourages private competition.
Plowman contends that for one of his clubs to financially compete with a Rillito Downs, especially during the school year when under-21 crowds aren't as large, he would have to cram about 700 kids into one place--a situation he says wouldn't be safe or feasible in the Fine Line, which has a 299-person capacity.
"After making the Line 18-and-over last summer, we lost almost half of our income," he says.
"The city doesn't have any of the restrictions we have to work with. They set up all the rules and don't have to follow them like we do."
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