While the majority of the Lompoc City Council recently agreed that the city’s current laws on public dances are outdated and unnecessarily strict, one member fought against the tide and argued for even stricter regulations.
During the City Council’s Feb. 15 meeting, Councilmember Gilda Cordova opposed City Attorney Jeff Malawy’s recommendation to repeal three chapters of Lompoc’s municipal code, which require operators of dance venues and dance academies to obtain a permit from the Lompoc Police Department before opening.
“These three chapters seem to be some low-hanging fruit, and are regulations that are not currently enforced by city staff,” Malawy said during the meeting.
According to the staff report, the three ordinances were adopted more than 50 years ago, and were recently confirmed by the Lompoc Police Department as no longer necessary.
After Malawy’s presentation, Councilmembers Dirk Starbuck and Jeremy Ball said they were in favor of repealing the regulations, but Cordova said she would rather modify the laws or adopt new ones before eliminating the three chapters in question.
Cordova expressed her concern that removing the laws would eliminate specific protections for children and teens at public dances and venues, using human trafficking as an example.
“These are basic regulations that protect the activity of minors in those locations,” Cordova said. “I don’t see where there’s a problem of over-regulating when it’s dealing with minors.”
But Malawy said he believed those protections would be maintained in separate sections of the municipal code. Mayor Jenelle Osborne added that public dances in Lompoc, including the annual Father Daughter Dance, already require separate permits that “oversee these issues.”
“I will say that as a historian, and being someone born and raised in Texas, these laws were often put in place for different societal reasons, whether it was a belief that dancing led to the devil or that they just didn’t like the idea of people getting together and socializing with music,” Osborne said. “There are lots of different reasons that over 50 years ago, society would have over-regulated such events.”
Cordova responded directly to Osborne’s comments.
“I don’t think anything of what Mayor Osborne said is really relevant to any of this. Nobody’s trying to stop the city from having the Father Daughter Dance. Nobody’s trying to stick this under religious over-protections,” Cordova said. “I feel that if it’s something that is not hurting anyone, why remove the restrictions that could protect, in my opinion, any minors or children.”
Ball pointed out that, according to the regulations as written, religious institutions and other organizations are exempt from the laws in question when hosting dances for members and guests, as long as alcohol isn’t served.
Cordova then amended her stance to keep the current dance laws in place but remove the exemptions Ball mentioned.
“I can’t agree with that, just because I think it’s increasing the regulation,” Ball said. “We have no method and no history of enforcing any of this. We can have great intentions, but if we can’t enforce something and don’t actively do so, then who are we protecting?”
After looking over the three chapters in question again and hearing additional advice from Malawy, Osborne motioned to direct city staff to draft a new, separate ordinance with specific regulations on public dances and dance venues open to minors before repealing the original laws.
“It appears to me, if I was going to have a dance, I’d go rent from the county at the Vets’ Hall at this point, but I’ll give you a second on that,” Starbuck said, before the motion passed with a 5-0 vote.
This article appears in Feb 24 – Mar 3, 2022.
