News to reuse: Doylestown hates live music… and fun of any kind, really
Submitted by jstudent on Wed, 2008-06-04 13:08.
[ ] Doylestown Borough recently ordered Siren Records on Main Street to stop live shows at its second-floor shop “over concerns about public health and safety.” It has since agreed to allow the store to host four shows a month, but its owner says he needs to host 10 to turn a profit. (Intelligencer)
From the story:
… “Our main purpose is to get people in the store and make the store a viable location,” said owner Blair Elliot, who says the primary purpose of the store is still to sell records....
But in the last few months, performances have become more frequent and intense, numbering about two or three a week, said Phil Ehlinger, Doylestown’s assistant borough manager and zoning and planning director.
Performances can attract 50 to 150 fans, ranging in age from teens to young adults. Noise has not been a concern, but public safety has been.
“It’s crossing a line of what is the principle use for the store,” said Ehlinger. “We’re not objecting to concerts, only when they started to get out of control with the size.” …
Of course, the real story is hinted at in the comments:
mrsmom - ...clean it up ....
(06/04/2008 )
the problem is that many of the concert-goers trash the town after the concerts..they drink, urinate, and vandalize the borough after the concerts. Perhaps better manners would go a long way.
- Dtown Mom
(06/04/2008 )
Siren records offers free condoms to anyone, any age at the counter. Cigar Parlor supports under age smoking upstairs. I don't think it's the music that is attracting the under 21 crowd.
/sighs
Allowing a suburbanite to buy another Flo Rida CD or check out another Saves the Anthem Eyes Alarm band is not necessarily the kindest thing one can do for a young adult (Look at it as a phase, sort of like those silly fucking all-over print hoodies or the Fall Out Hat. It will pass.), but Philly EDGE strongly believes in an individual’s right to establishing their own, albeit sometimes poor, taste and enjoying every minute of a misspent youth.
But this is, all too sadly, vintage Doylestown. The picturesque Bucks County seat has a multitude of cultural and live music offerings - enough for a small city, never mind a suburb - yet somehow the townsfolk often refuse to afford its children and young adults the space to actually have some fun. It cracked down on sitting in 2005 for chrissakes!
Never mind that Siren, an independent record store not under the mind-control of bold-colored shirt-wearing, soulless corporate big box music retailers, reinvested into the borough and more than tripled its store space when it moved from State Street onto Main Street in 2006. Would you rather a two-story f.y.e?
Ignore that other venues such as Puck, the Cigar Parlor and the Freight House have run into their own struggles with borough ordinances in the past – though the former two certainly had the music scene more than profit in mind than the latter. Would you rather be overrun by cover bands playing "Little Black Backpack" or acoustic duos singing "Sweet Caroline"?
Completely disregard that interesting, nationally-recognized, signed-to-a-label bands have sprouted as a result of the Dtown scene regardless of the town’s efforts to squash it: Illinois, Aderbat, Peasant, Eastern Conference Champions and more. Anyone think that John or Jane Ryan or Ashley want to aspire to be a tax accountant just out of a starter marriage or a pharma rep all cougar-ed up? No slight to those professions, but let your progeny dream a little before reality runs them over.
And, please pay no attention to the fact that were it classical, jazz or choir music, it would not even be an issue. But once you add a faux hawk, a detuned guitar or two and the occasional obligatory Hot Topic t-shirt it’s “Slow down there, Sparky. This spells big trouble here in River City.”
What the whiny, ever-complaining, tight asses miss is that all of the stuffy bluster that surrounds their N.I.M.B.Y. sort-of thinking has not prevented the very real, contemporary issues (drugs, depression, violence, racism, etc.) from coming to their scenic hamlet any more than The Grinch stopped Christmas from coming by thieving the Whos’ tree and roast beast.
Truth is: You can’t keep ‘em down on the farm, but you can make them resent being there and want to seek greener pastures.
From Philly EDGE to those complaining: Embrace what you have, and STFU. Really.
