Proposed Ban on All-Night Dancing Fails

The San Diego City Council changed its tune Monday, rejecting a proposal to close dance establishments citywide between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

Saying the proposal would hurt attempts to promote night life downtown, the council instead asked that an ordinance be drafted that would exempt at least the Gaslamp Quarter from such a restriction.

The total ban on all-night dancing, proposed by Councilman Ed Struiksma and strongly supported by the San Diego Police Department, had been unanimously approved earlier this month by the council’s Public Services and Safety Committee. But committee members William Jones, Uvaldo Martinez and Mike Gotch said they were convinced that closing cabarets and dance clubs at 2 a.m. would hinder the promotion of downtown as an entertainment center and the development of the Gaslamp Quarter--and likely involve the city in a lawsuit it would have little chance of winning.

All-night dancing, commonplace in most major cities, is a new phenomenon in San Diego. It was inaugurated several months ago at Trax, a no-liquor disco (minimum age for admission is 18) at 630 5th Ave. On weekends, the 2 a.m.-6 a.m. dances at Trax have been packed, with 300 people inside and block-long lines outside the door as late as 4 a.m.

After Trax began the all-night dances, its owners successfully challenged a city law forbidding dance clubs from opening between 2 a.m. and 11 a.m. In May, Superior Court Judge Mack Lovett struck down the ordinance, ruling that it was unenforceable.

Tom Homann, attorney for Trax, said he was “very pleasantly surprised” by the council’s action. “Isolating places where all-night dancing is appropriate is a welcomed, enlightened approach,” he said. Other dance spots in popular areas for night life in the city, including Mission Valley, might be exempted from the 2-6 a.m. mandatory closing as well when the new ordinance is drafted.

Noting Trax’s success, other bars and dance clubs in the Gaslamp and in Hillcrest recently have begun offering all-night dancing as well, to the chagrin of the police, who feel that after-hours establishments pose a potentially serious crime problem. Senior police officers have not blamed Trax’s all-night dances for any specific unlawful activity, but they said San Francisco police regardeach of the 14 all-night dance spots in that city as serious law enforcement problems.

Struiksma, a former police officer, was the only council member favoring the citywide ban on after-hours dances. “There are a lot of things we can do in the way of night life that would not create the police problem of having downtown suddenly running 24 hours a day,” he said, adding that people “should have ample opportunity within a 20-hour period to do their dancing.”

Jones, who supported Struiksma’s proposal at the committee level, said he had a change of heart because “more and more people are going to be going downtown in the next four to five years, and we ought to encourage that. I hate to have a rigid ordinance that restricts business people from making money.

“In the Gaslamp, we should be able to have places open later where law-abiding people want to go that would not cause problems for police,” Jones said, adding that the restriction on all-night dancing would lead to a “sterile environment” in the quarter.

Martinez, who with Struiksma had been the leading proponent of the citywide ban in the committee, said closing Trax and other late-night spots in the Gaslamp would be “an obstacle to promoting downtown.”

Gotch, another supporter of the measure when it was before the committee, said, “We should not shut down the city we’re trying to breathe life into. We’re trying to create an exciting downtown, and we can’t do that by closing up at 2 a.m.”

Gotch and other council members also feared the legal ramifications of Struiksma’s proposal. “Time and time again, we legislate ourselves into a corner,” Gotch said, “then we go to court, and more often than not, we lose.”

City staff members will consider whether Mission Valley and other popular entertainment areas should be included with the Gaslamp Quarter in the exemption. A revised ordinance will be considered by the council later this summer.