I’ve been to a Tilted Kilt before. Its a stretch to call it “Celtic themed”, its pretty much Hooters with exposed mid-rifts. They’re certainly not a strip-club, but the chance to oogle scantily clad waitresses is definitely as much a part of what they’re selling as the food and drink.
So while I don’t have any personal problem with the place, I can see where, if you were trying to zone your town to keep things classy and upscale, one might hesitate to allow a Tilted Kilt even if there were already other bars in the area.
While i might make some general lament about the decline of civilization, i don’t really have a problem with places like Hooters and Tilted Kilt. If i don’t like them (and i don’t), i wont go there.
I do think some of the puritanical complaining by Evanston residents is a bit silly, but i also think the guy applying for the permit is a dishonest douchebag. In the second article linked by the OP, he and his wife say things like:
Look, dude, i don’t really care if you want to have a tits-and-ass business model, but at least have the balls to be honest about what your business model is: using provocatively-dressed, attractive young women to lure customers.
I’d have more respect for the guy if he just came out and said, “Yes, our waitresses are hot, and they don’t wear much in the way of clothing. That’s what our customers like, and that’s why they come. If you don’t like it, don’t come in.”
People, we’re talking about a town that took years to allow a McDonald’s, and last I checked, which still doesn’t allow Burger King employees to bag food for takeout to skirt the restrictions on fast-food restaurants. The town was semi-dry (no package liquor, and almost no restaurants that could serve so much as a beer, and even then only with a full meal) until I was in college. Evanston has always, always been hard-nosed about zoning and alcohol. Not allowing this establishment is entirely consistent with existing community standards.
The elected representative of the community under discussion has made her decision. Everyone I know who actually lives there is in agreement. Why are all you people who don’t have any connection to the place questioning it?
You are right that the Mayor is obliged, in some measure at least, to uphold community standards and to represent her constituents. To the extent that she is doing that, i wish her luck and have no real problem with her decision.
But just because those are the community standards doesn’t mean that people outside the community can’t find them silly or counterproductive or pointless. There are other places in America whose community standards include bans on the sale of alcohol; i don’t live in those places, but i still think those standards are dumb.
Because the decision’s fucking retarded. If the locals really didn’t want it, there’d be no demand for it, and it wouldn’t open. Course, if you like living with the modern Cromwell as your mayor, you’ve got bigger issues than whether or not a waitress has her navel exposed.
That’s not necessarily true. Its a college town and a suburb, its seems likely the owner was depending on demand from people who weren’t residents of the town.
I’ve never understood the idea that students aren’t residents of the town in which they reside.
Unless you’re suggesting that students will come from other towns to this particular bar, in which case I can kind of understand the objections. Still sounds like a few people don’t want the majority to have fun, though, and if they are all in this one bar then they will be easy for the local puritans to avoid.
If thats what the majority wants, the majority should stop voting for a City Council that apparently has a pretty long history of not issuing liquor licenses to similar establishments.
True. It just seems like a strange way to go about things. If the locals are concerned about increased noise or crime, that’s one thing, but to be concerned about the length of the barmaid’s skirt is another, and it sounds like the latter is the issue.
Still, I live on another continent, in a city with no shortage of scantily clad barmaids, so I’ll not get too upset about it!
Students are free to register to vote where they are in school - no idea how many of them actually do. Of course, most NU students (undergrads anyway) aren’t old enough to drink legally anyway.
If it doesn’t open, how does anyone have any way of knowing what the demand would actually be? And why do you care what bar does or doesn’t open in a town you presumably don’t live in and don’t have any relationship with?
P.S. I don’t live in Evanston at the moment, but I certainly have in the not-too-distant past. I didn’t vote for the current mayor. I have little to no desire to hang out in bars unless there’s a good band playing, so I’m not the target market in any case. I have no issues either with alcohol or with scantily clad women, but I think either of those things are readily available in Evanston without this place opening. Most of the residents seem to be against it, so my suggestion is that the owner find some other place to set up shop. Evanston is only about 4 miles end to end, so it shouldn’t be difficult to find another spot nearby.
Ah, Evanston. My home for five years. The town that recently threatened to start enforcing its "brothel law that bars more than three unrelated people from living together. This is also the suburb where it is said that bowling, skipping, and trick-or-treating are illegal, so the fact that they don’t allow the Tilted Kilt into town does not surprise. All three of those are myths (though there are no bowling alleys in the city limits, and I don’t think there ever were), but that should give you an idea of the tenor of the town. People believe those myths for good reason.
I didn’t say anything about the instance, which is ultimately small change. I just don’t like the line of thinking that goes, “You aren’t part of this group, therefore, you have no right to hold or express an opinion on what this group does.”
But you would allow that those communities have the right to “uphold community standards,” or no? That your freedom from them is the freedom to go elsewhere?
Ooooh…that’s a sore point right there. Do not DARE suggest that Evanston is or should be part of Chicago!
I lived in Evanston for 5 years (now I live a few miles away on the north side of Chicago). Evanston is not going puritanical. Evanston has been puritanical for decades.
ETA: Have you seen how many churches there are up there? Someone once told me that Evanston has the highest number of churches per capita of any American city. I don’t know if it’s literally true, but it’s got to be in the top 10.
Has there been a poll on this issue? Because I wouldn’t presume from the fact that someone can assemble about 2000 signatories to a petition in a city of over 70,000 residents that most residents are against it.
People who are against something are more likely to sign a petition or otherwise become active in opposition than those who support it. That’s the primary basis of the NIMBY (not in my backyard!) phenomenon: opposition is concentrated and motivated, while support is diffuse and unenthusiastic. A town may need a new sewer plant, but few outside the sewer department are grinning-ear-to-ear speak-from-a-soapbox gaga for one, while the people in the neighborhood slated to get the plant are viscerally opposed to it. And yet the last time I checked, votes in a democracy are not weighted by how strongly a voter feels about his or her vote, except to the extent that strength of sentiment affects the voters’ decision to go vote at all.
A core of people absolutely hate something, while few of the people who would vote “yea” in a poll or ballot actually love it. That seems highly relevant here, as the people who fear that the bar will “endanger Evanston’s girl children” clearly feel strongly, while few but the owners of the bar space feel so strongly in its favor. And yet some residents may feel clearly but not strongly that this bar is harmless, or the owner should be allowed to run a lawful business, or that others should have the choice to patronize such a business even if they personally wouldn’t.
