In the 1980s, a town in Wise County, Virginia, banned public dancing. The rule stuck around for over 10 years & made it hard for anyone to host dances without going through a mess of permits. So why did they do this? And why did they stop? Let’s take a look.
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Key takeaways
Here’s what’s coming up:
- What the actual ordinance said & how local officials justified keeping it
- The part alcohol played in all this
- The guy who challenged the law
- What the judge decided in 1999
- What happened once the law was struck down
The place and rule
Pound, Virginia, where this happened, is hardly a big place. It’s tucked into the Appalachian part of Virginia, close to Kentucky.
So what was the deal? In short, no public dancing without the town’s permission. Anyone who wanted to run a place where people could dance would have to get a license from the town council.
Unfortunately, that license could be denied for reasons that weren’t exactly clear. The rejection letters would say things about “moral character” & “improper conduct,” but didn’t explain what those actually meant. There was also no real timeline for them to give you an answer, as applications could just sit for a long time. And they did.
Why local officials said they wanted it
Town leaders insisted they weren’t trying to overstep their boundaries. Instead, they said their big worry was alcohol, as they’d seen problems at dance halls before, such as drinking & fights. They figured a permit system would help them keep things calm.
How the application actually worked
Anyone who wanted to hold public dances had to hand in a written request with some basic information. This included where the event would take place, plus the name & address of whoever was in charge.
Anyone lucky enough to get the green light would receive a license for a year, but if the council said no, that was it for a while. You had to wait for six months before trying again. Hearings were also scheduled during regular council meetings, so decisions weren’t made on a strict timeline. Honestly, it was as unfair as it sounds.
Which events were excluded from the rule
But not every gathering had to jump through these hoops. There were exceptions for groups like churches, schools, civic clubs & the military, as well as any dances hosted for charity or by one of these organizations. And as long as the event wasn’t held somewhere with alcohol, it didn’t need the usual permit.
How long it actually lasted
Of course, such a rule couldn’t just appear overnight, and the actual regulation stuck around for close to two decades. It became just part of how the town operated. Generations of teens went through high school under it, and people opened businesses knowing they’d have to deal with that ordinance whenever they wanted to host a dance.
By the time the case went to court in 1999, the town had already lived under this dance-permit rule for over 10 years.
Who pushed back & how
The person who finally said enough was a restaurant owner named Rusty Elam. He ran The Golden Pine, a family spot where he thought some music & dancing might liven things up. As such, he applied for a permit.
But he was rejected, as the council pushed the decision aside after resisting for a long time. Yet Elam didn’t give up. Instead, he filed a federal lawsuit in November 1998, arguing that the ordinance violated the First & Fourteenth Amendments, and that the town was trampling on constitutional rights.
What the judge decided in 1999
On June 29, 1999, the U.S. District Court judge gave their final ruling and threw out that ordinance entirely. It said that the town’s permitting system gave officials far too much unchecked power, as terms like “good moral character” were way too vague. The lack of deadlines meant they could stall forever.
As a result, the court called the ordinance unconstitutional & barred the town from enforcing it any longer.
After the ruling
Once the judge handed down the decision, Pound couldn’t use its old system anymore. They weren’t allowed to do any more moral-character checks or any permits that dragged on without end.
By 2000, the town had a replacement law on the books that aimed to avoid the problems that landed the first one in court. It was designed to be more specific and not a moral judgement. There was also a $500 fine for violations. Around that same time, The Golden Pine, Elam’s restaurant, kept hosting dances but didn’t apply for a fresh license under the new rules. Without enforcement, for all intents and purposes, the dance ban was finished. No one has been ticketed under the new law yet.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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