Early 20th Century anarchist Emma Goldman never really said or wrote, "If I can't dance I don't want to be in your revolution,"but the faux quotation is all over the place on posters and t-shirts.
The sentiment was implied by her response to a very young colleague who scolded her for kicking up her heels at dance halls while there was serious damage to be done to The Man, Alix Kates Shulman wrote in 1991.
This summer, the City of Alexandria is working diligently to streamline its rules about dancing, although it may be creating more rules that govern the revolution part of Goldman's spiritual heirs in Minnesota. Seems like the case when one reads between the lines of Al Edenloff's article in the Alexandria Echo Press, Dancing ordinance is on the way out:
If you're interested in dancing, drilling private wells, parking on the grass or holding signs on city property, you should have been at Monday's Alexandria City Council meeting.
The council considered ordinance changes involving all four of those topics.
An out-dated section of city code regulating dances may soon be rescinded.
The council voted 5-0 to take the first step of eliminating the 1992 ordinance, which required people to get a license if they held public dances that required dancers to pay a fee. Other rules prohibited alcohol, prostitutes, and inebriated persons from attending the dances, and required a police officer to be present. Sunday dances were also not allowed.
The city now issues special event permits for dances and events and outdoor music is addressed in the city's noise ordinance. . . .
Another ordinance that clarifies the placement of signs also moved forward. It contains rules that people must obey while holding, carrying or wearing signs on city property. A permit isn't needed as long as they express noncommercial messages that are within the protection of the First Amendment.
The signs must be held by a person or personally attended; inanimate signs that are left unattended may not be displayed regardless of the type of message.
The maximum size all signs held by a single person would be 8 square feet or up to 32 square feet if held by two or more people.
People with signs may not stand in any traffic lane when a roadway is open for use, and those displaying signs on public sidewalks must give at least five feet width clearance for pedestrians or other traffic to pass by. Persons holding signs may not block the free and clear vision of drivers, bicyclists or pedestrians. . . .
While tipplers and sex workers might be relieved at the lifting of the banhammer at their presence at dances in Alex, we suspect that the property rights folks might feel a bit pinched by the sign restrictions if they elect to protest the coming prohibition of new private wells in the city:
The council believes it has the legal authority to ban private wells. Well-drilling groups disagree and say the city is exceeding its authority and violating individual property rights.
If we were Marxists or anarchists, we might insert a joke here about property being theft to begin with, but we're neither. The city, the powerful well-drilling lobby and other stakeholders can thrash this one out, albeit with managed signage on public property, so long as they don't take it to the streets or block the sidewalks.
Photo: Emma Goldman speaking at demonstration. Looks like the hipster gentlemen in fancy fedoras attending her words are obeying Alex's city ordinance about not holding signs in the streets.
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