Boston - During the past few weeks club-goers under the age of 21 have been turned away from Boston establishments with no explanation. Club promoters are blaming the city. The city is not answering questions. And the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender (LGBT) community is confused and distraught.
"Even in this day and age of increased tolerance, for many LGBT people clubs and bars are the one place where we can feel truly accepted and free from judgement and societal stigma," said Mark Snyder, Founder of QueerToday.com. "If this is a permantent ban on under-21 parties it will be devastating to our community. Not only will our young people have no place to let loose, club promoters, drag queens, club owners, doormen, and taxi-drivers will suffer economic losses as well. One promoter informed QueerToday.com that due to this mysterious ban he would lose $1200 per month making it impossible to afford his rent.
While the city continues to transfer us from department to department, and refuses to answer any questions, one local club employee speculated that the ban was enacted as a component of the city's new efforts to curb gang violence. And another speculated that it was to curb under-age drinking.
It is time for the city to answer our questions.
~Mark Snyder, Founder, QueerToday.com
5 comments:
OMG....what a travasty.
Underage and can't get into a bar.
HELLO??
If you aren't 21 then you shouldn't be in a bar to begin with unless it is UNDER 21 night!
Jesus Christ it is the end of the world. What ever happened to house parties etc...for those who aren't legal drinking age?
Give me a break....
I want more information.
I am wondering if perhaps this is just another manifestation of what seems to be a "war on youth".
There are shopping malls now that don't allow kids under 18 to congregate unless they are with their parents.
I agree about the "war on youth." The university my partner and I work at doesn't allow groups larger than 5 (I think) to congregate on campus, unless it's an organization meeting of course.
What's ridiculous is that these are adults, not kids. If they can go to war, vote, and marry, they can certainly congregate in public places.
Sounds like an infringement on the right to assemble as guaranteed by the Constitution.
In rebuttal I would ask you if you've hung around the mall at all, John? Some of the kids that hang out at the mall are selling drugs, picking fights, and stealing. When I managed a retail store they were one of the primary reasons we did not have better shopping traffic. I can completely understand why they would try to get the trouble kids out of the mall, but not why Boston would have some sort of backdoor permit change that's kept hush-hush.
I do think there is a war on youth as you say though, I just needed to give another point of view on the "mall rats".
This distresses me. Mostly, seeing something where people are "worried about gang violence" and, in response, remove something for people under 21 to do. I thought one of the useful tactics was actually having things aimed at younger people, so that they had places to go and be social people, rather than excluding them from everything?
Perhaps this doesn't end up working perfectly. I, for one, haven't been in retail since I was under 21 myself, and even then not in a place where Id expect a drug deal to happen any more than any other place. But... going after everyone like this and not just paying more attention seems like the wrong way to go.
I still recall one cold winter walking to down town Malden for something. It was after school got out, and there was a vast number of high schooler hanging out on the side walk in center of town. I could say that they were in my way... but they really weren't I simply walked around them... the area in qestion would have needed at least 3 times the number of people ther eto be an actually walking-traffic block. And when I went by some, they started parting as though to let me through to the McDonald's. (I wasn't going there, but they were making sure they weren't blocking the entrance anyway.) They were all just standing, hanging out chatting, with some getting food at the McDonald's there. A police officer came by and started harassing them, saying they could be there. Too many kids. I was offended, and I still regret not going back and asking the officer what the problem was. These were school kids just out of school, and they were being yelled as though they were doing something wrong by someone who'd you'd expect to know better.
I had to wonder: where did he expect them to all go? What did he find them doing that was so offensive to him?
I am reminded of this reading this article. Blanket policy to get rid of a "problem" is not a good idea.
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