War on nightlife? What war on nightlife?
The city is set to propose new rules for nightclubs and music venues in River City. Now where have we heard that tune before?
This week’s Style Weekly back page essay, penned by yours truly, takes a look at these new nightlife ordinances and recounts some of the “backstory” behind Richmond’s never-ending war on nightlife. I also manage to get in a dig at Chesterfield County, which is currently engaging in a “Footloose”-like war on dancing.
The Style Back Page begins:
A new promotional video commissioned by the Greater Richmond Partnership pays tribute to the city’s “live and vibrant music scene.” Venture Richmond’s Web site does the same: “Downtown Richmond has been attracting both local and national artists, performers and musicians for years and today a lot of Downtown’s vibe and energy comes from them.”
So what do you do with your downtown vibe? Naturally, if you are Richmond, you try to shut it off.
A few years ago, just as the National Theater and Toad’s Place were opening, the Wilder administration prepared a little housewarming gift. It proposed a series of laws that would have given the city the power to close down any club with little due process, and sought to actually penalize music venues for holding successful shows. Club owners were to “submit a plan for traffic and crowd control in and around the establishment to the police no later than seven days prior to the event” if they believed their show would be a success. Police then had to approve the concert.
Those loopy edicts — forcing club owners to be mind readers and to hope against last-minute ticket sales — were shelved. But City Hall is still determined to do something about all of this nightlife being championed in the tourist brochures.
A soon-to-be-proposed ordinance seeks to define nightclubs separately from restaurants and would require new music venues and promoters to file for a $1,100 conditional use permit in order to hold events — sorry Mr. Clapton — after midnight. Existing clubs would not have to adhere to this rule, and venues that feature disc jockeys and recorded music would be particularly affected.
There’s at least one common-sense notion in the proposed new rules: Clubs would have to file a management plan with the city that covers everything from noise to trash collection to security. It’s a reasonable idea, but why should clubs have to pay the city an exorbitant sum to file such a plan?
Read the whole thing right here.
… and it should be noted that Richmond’s unofficial slogan, “The City That Fun Forgot,” was first coined way back in 2002, in a two-part Richmond Magazine feature article by Harry Kollatz and Richard Foster. I wish I had a .pdf of this piece to link to because it is still relevant. Harry makes reference to it here and here over at his blog, The Hat.
