NAME!
THAT!
PARTY*!!!!!
One evening last March, D.C. Council member Vincent B. Orange hit the Dupont Circle clubs with three of his constituents. With a sound meter in hand, the group cut through the alleys behind the bars and weaved through the lines of people on sidewalks, along the way measuring the sounds emanating from these popular weekend spots.
Yup: the Democrat was wandering around with a bunch of fellow-killjoys (the “D.C. Nightlife Noise Coalition”) to discover that, hey, bars are loud. His solution to that? “The council member introduced legislation this month requiring bars and restaurants to measure and submit to a city agency their outside noise levels every hour of operation between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m.” The coalition also wants to ban outdoor music and dancing, because GET OFF MY LAWN.
Ah, those happening, hip Democrats…
(Via @mattashburn)
Moe Lane
PS: What? Hey, I wouldn’t live at Dupont Circle on a bet. It gets pretty loud there on a Saturday night. But the young folks gotta go somewhere, am I right? …Look, I’m 45. I can’t legitimately claim to be one of the young folks anymore. I’m surprisingly fine with this. It keeps me out of trouble.
*Seriously: Perry Stein manages to list the Democratic affiliation of the City Council member who is claiming that she (Mary Cheh) inadvertently cosponsored Councilman Orange’s bill, but forgets to mention the affiliation of Orange himself. That’s gotta be worth extra points.
Moe:
I don’t think this is a case of Name That Party, if only because I get the impression that the reporter thinks that Orange’s busybodyism is a good thing and something that Democrats can take credit for.
Also, it can safely be assumed that any given DC councilcritter is a Democrat: currently 11 of the 13 councilcritters are explicitly Democratic and 2 are nominally independent but actually Democratic to meet the Home Rule Act’s requirement that at least 2 at-large seats are not held by the majority political party.
And the young folks who are affected by this will most likely vote for which party? That’s right, the Democratic Party, the same party whose policies have helped these kids go deep into debt with student loads, remain unemployed and soon will have no place to go on a Friday night. *sigh*
As a member of the middle-aged myself, I do know that the places my twenty-something self went to is not the place I want to live. I think this falls under the “grow up mr. local politician” tag.
No, seriously; if you want “hip nightlife” then you do not have “steady asleep by 10:30” people around. That is why there are suburbs, so those with responsible jobs can sleep and those with no children and no real responsibilities can deal with the louts and oafs (of both sexes) at closing time.
Oh wait – the Liberals and Democrats hate suburbs. And they hate children. And responsible adults.
Sometimes I get so confused.
I get confused because at my middle-age my Bacchanalia consists of a couple of beers at the bar while watching the game and then back home.*
*The pizza is awesome – two-for-one on Sunday.