Amended Japan law approves dancing the night away
Print Edition
JAPAN’S Cabinet yesterday approved changes to a 66-year-old law that bans late-night dancing in clubs, a decision that will help businesses cash in on an influx of tourists ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Dancing at public venues is illegal in Japan and is only permitted until midnight under a special licence, in a holdover from a 1948 law to stamp out prostitution linked to dance halls. The police stiffened enforcement of the rule four years ago, however, after a student was killed in a brawl in Osaka, Japan’s second-largest metropolitan area, and worries grew about risks to young people against a backdrop of celebrity drug scandals.
“Visitors from overseas would come here to Japan and they’d wonder why they can’t dance, even though you can dance at night anywhere overseas,” said Kenji Kosaka, a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and head of an alliance of lawmakers for the promotion of dance culture. “The biggest thing that will change in this law is that you can now dance at night.”
Police often used the existing law as a pretext to investigate problems such as boisterous clubbers, illegal drugs or suspected gangster involvement, so changing the rules may not end police intrusions into clubland.
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