They are called blue laws. Based upon my
exhaustive (two minutes of Internet searching) research, such laws have
their origin in puritan New England and were (or are) intended to
regulate moral behavior and limit what could or could not be done on
the Sabbath.

    I don’t know if requiring a special permit to allow
a jukebox, live music or dancing is technically a blue law, but there
are certainly elements of the requirement that seem puritanical. As the
case of the South Portland City Council’s review of the Spring Point
Tavern’s entertainment license demonstrates, there is a practical
reason for the regulation: giving the city a mechanism to rein in a
business that promotes a rowdy atmosphere (the council granted the
license with conditions)

    But here’s the part I don’t get – what’s the deal
with the dancing? An entertainment license that excludes dancing costs
$50, but with dancing it is $200. I must be missing something because I
don’t understand why allowing dancing cost four times as much as
allowing music. Are we afraid women will start auctioning off spots on
their dance card or “perform” in other ways?

    For some reason tavern owner David Cram decided he
didn’t need to cough up the extra $150. Perhaps he felt it wasn’t cost
effective or maybe requesting a “with dancing” license was asking for
too much from an already skeptical council – but to me, if you’re going
to book bands and have a jukebox you might as well go ahead and spend
the extra 50 cents a day in case someone wants to dance.

    At the meeting, Cram told the council that there is
no dance floor at the tavern, if that is true I’m curious what he calls
the open room with no seats. Perhaps after a long day at work, most of
his patrons prefer standing around holding their drinks.

    On the day of the meeting I stopped into the tavern
to ask some of the patrons and employees about the pending action (I
sent reporter Amanda Estes to the municipal meeting, keeping the “sit
in a bar and talk to people” assignment for myself). Off to one side a
man began playing air guitar to accompany the jukebox. Is that dancing?
Then  a woman moved rhythmically from one end of the
open-room-with-no-seats to the other. Was that a dance? To me it seemed
more like a form of locomotion – but then what if the song “Locomotion”
was playing? Then what is it?

    I began pondering.

    Is there an acceptable standard of degrees off
center someone’s hips are allowed to sway or a minimum elapsed time
before said hips can be brought back to center and out the other way?
Can you tap your feet so long as your heel remains on the floor?

    What about hopping? Can you hop but not bop? What if
the person is an exceptionally bad dancer and it doesn’t even look like
dancing? What if it turns out they are simply waiting in line for the
bathroom?

    What about enforcement? Has anyone been thrown out
of a bar for doing the mashed potato? Is there a
three-steps-and-you’re-out rule? Are we dispatching police officers to
report Kevin Bacon to John Lithgow or is it up to management? If so,
should the tavern hire a middle school principal in addition to a
bouncer to make sure patrons are behaving themselves?

    What is the band’s responsibility in all of this?
What happens if they accidentally rock the house? What if they do it on
purpose?

    Is there an appeal process? Can someone bring in a
grandparent to declare, “That’s not dancing! This is dancing!” then
proceed to waltz around the chamber? Wouldn’t that be the best meeting
ever?

    The more I think about this the more I think it
really needs to be tested in court, but I don’t like the tavern’s
chances if it makes it to the Supreme Court, that Scalia seems like a
real stick in the mud. Or the city could come up with one entertainment
license and charge everyone 75 bucks. Either way works for me. In the
meantime maybe Cram should look into amending his license.