Last Call for Concerts

One shortcoming of life in our shining city on a hill is that it inevitably stops shining around 2 a.m., long before its many college-age residents are ready to turn in. Late last month, the City of Boston turned the puritanical screw still tighter with the enactment of a directive prohibiting those under 21 from attending nightclubs after 11 p.m. That has meant the de facto end of both 19-and-over nights at clubs and under-21 attendance at concerts held at local clubs.

For students and young people, this move represents another symptom of the city’s unique penchant for enacting stifling regulation. Worse, officials seem incapable of validating the drastic action taken, and ambiguity abounds.

Patricia A. Malone, the city’s director of consumer affairs and licensing, issued the mandate, labeled “temporary,” to curb a purported surge in violence at nightclubs, the nature of which has yet to be disclosed to the public. Malone argued the directive was a necessity for public safety and that “instead of being reactive, which the city sometimes seems to be, we chose to be proactive.”

While advance action is admirable, such arbitrary preemption by an unelected figure is alarming. In a city of 600,000 that is the local hub for nightlife and A-list musical acts, thousands will suffer for this draconian maneuver. And Malone did not seem to have given these tremendous effects much thought, telling The Crimson “I had no idea how popular these concerts were.”

When asked whether the vague criminality was necessarily perpetrated by 19- and 20-year-old concertgoers, none of whom are permitted to consume alcohol on the premises of a nightclub (which have extremely strict regulations to prevent underage drinking), Malone conceded, “As I look back on it, I should say no.” Officials are punishing a demographic that would seem to have had nothing to do with the public safety concerns they offer as the sole, flimsy justification for this directive.

The City’s lack of transparency makes these rules even more exasperating. We hope that Malone will become more transparent about her new policy and, if it is not reconsidered, try to find ways to work with clubs so that concerts and events held at clubs do not become a thing of the past.

Malone has of course repeatedly asserted that a club venue hosting concerts can contact her office for an exemption from the 11 p.m. deadline, saying she has already granted “about a dozen.” While this sporadic sort of clemency is commendable, it is but a small comfort as the broad measure continues to apply to every licensed club in the city with no definitive end in sight. And the red tape involved in obtaining an exemption might prevent many clubs from seeking one.

While a travesty in its own right, this directive is only the latest jarring blow in Boston’s long bout with its student population. It reinforces a disheartening precedent of broad paternalism, this time without even a shred of justification. Examples of the City’s historic hostility and distrust toward its sizable collegial constituency—which in 2000 made up 15 percent of its total population—abound. For instance, the city has granted exactly one after-hours license—to a diner that does not serve alcohol past 1 a.m.—and shutters its subway system not long after midnight.

It seems unlikely that Boston will relax all of its restrictive rules overnight. But getting rid of the restrictions on nightclubs would be a good start.