Why

[burnburnburn]

does it feel like every venue/show in pittsburgh 21 plus. Theres alot of really hungry kids (including myself) in this scene that wanna dive right in and go to some shows. There are countless local bands i wanna see but cant due to my age and its extremely frusturating. I've missed everyone from American Armada, to On Vinyl to Auryn because of this and something needs to change. I've also been shut out of playing shows do to these restrictions as well (we were supposed to play with Blitzkid and The Cheats last night but due to belvederes going 18 plus we were told we couldnt). thoughts?

[howlerscoyotecafe]

Well, darlin..
There are all ages venues and then there are bars/clubs.
The lovely State of PA continues to pass more and more archaic legislation that ties our hands in who we can and cannot allow in.

Granted, they believe they are helping to prevent all you kiddies from horrid awful things like cigarette smoke and alcohol... but in the end it makes it impossible for a venue to allow minors on the premises without taking huge chances, paying for extra staff, or risking hefty fines if we do it wrong. And the rules are deliberately very vague and left open to interpretation any damn way the PA-LCB wants to interpret them.

There are "art" spaces and other venues without a liquor license that do all ages things, but they have thier own issues on booking these bands you want to see and play with which I will let someone with more knowledge than myself address.

I can only speak for the bars/liquor licensees. Belvies had to go to 18 and up because of the State's new smoking ban laws. Effective, Sept. 11, 2008 - The only way we get our exemption to allow smoking is if we do not allow anyone under 18 on the premises under any circumstance.
They must have weighed their options on this and decided it was in their best interest to create the age limitations rather than ban smoking.

[thisshitisgenius]

That was informative Jo, I wasn't aware of some of that.

[bertokhadafi]

Thank a liberal for this shit kids. They know whats best for everyone.

[bertokhadafi]

Just like in the other thread where I mentioned Campaign finance reform unwarrented government meddling has caused unintended consequences. This is the liberal mindset of the smoking ban which sees the government as a tool to save people from their own chosen behavior. The power to make these decisions has been put into the hands of beurocrats and are likely not to change. This is why people fear any government involvement in healthcare. So thank all the people who felt that the government should be some sort of brainless nanny watching over us and shouldn't be limited in power and reach. Or become a libertarian and insist that the power of the state not be extended for the cause of solving societies ills because you know that its likely to backfire and have the reverse effect.

[human39]

yeah, this sucks. There have been a few threads started about getting shows to the younger crowd, but not much happens.. honestly.

[Flashy Ross]

I love how Berty breaks everything down to either Liberals or Conservatives, haha. What a joke.

[Flashy Ross]

[bertokhadafi]

Jan 25, 2009 9:42:38 GMT -5 Flashy Ross said:

I love how Berty breaks everything down to either Liberals or Conservatives, haha. What a joke.

What other driving ideology was there behind the misguided smoking ban? What other sort of mentality was there at work?

[AJ_]

People's health?

Yay for the smoking ban!

fuck your smoke, stick it up your hippie ass!

[bertokhadafi]

Jan 25, 2009 14:45:41 GMT -5 AJ_ said:

People's health?

Yay for the smoking ban!

fuck your smoke, stick it up your hippie ass!

But people always had the right to avoid and not work in places they thought was bad for them. The decision was up to the indavidual. Now its in the hands of beurocrats. This just means that all ages shows have one more thing going against them. All because local liberals couldn't allow people to make their own decisions whether or not they wanted to be somewhere that smoking was allowed. Of course this was not an intended consequence but such things happen when a small group of people take more power than they are supposed to have and start making decisions for everybody based on what they think is good for them. YAY for government power over liberty. For the record I don't smoke ciggerettes.

[thisshitisgenius]

Jan 25, 2009 15:48:43 GMT -5 bertokhadafi said:

Jan 25, 2009 14:45:41 GMT -5 AJ_ said:

People's health?

Yay for the smoking ban!

fuck your smoke, stick it up your hippie ass!

But people always had the right to avoid and not work in places they thought was bad for them. The decision was up to the indavidual. Now its in the hands of beurocrats. This just means that all ages shows have one more thing going against them. All because local liberals couldn't allow people to make their own decisions whether or not they wanted to be somewhere that smoking was allowed. Of course this was not an intended consequence but such things happen when a small group of people take more power than they are supposed to have and start making decisions for everybody based on what they think is good for them. YAY for government power over liberty. For the record I don't smoke ciggerettes.

Suppose this had come about via referendum or imagine that we lived in a direct democracy rather than a representative one. Would you still have the same attitude about the ban, or would you accept it as members of society autonomously deciding on a rule for the betterment of the society?

[bertokhadafi]

Jan 25, 2009 21:02:40 GMT -5 thisshitisgenius said:

Jan 25, 2009 15:48:43 GMT -5 bertokhadafi said:

But people always had the right to avoid and not work in places they thought was bad for them. The decision was up to the indavidual. Now its in the hands of beurocrats. This just means that all ages shows have one more thing going against them. All because local liberals couldn't allow people to make their own decisions whether or not they wanted to be somewhere that smoking was allowed. Of course this was not an intended consequence but such things happen when a small group of people take more power than they are supposed to have and start making decisions for everybody based on what they think is good for them. YAY for government power over liberty. For the record I don't smoke ciggerettes.

Suppose this had come about via referendum or imagine that we lived in a direct democracy rather than a representative one. Would you still have the same attitude about the ban, or would you accept it as members of society autonomously deciding on a rule for the betterment of the society?

Once again that would be a one size fits all solution. Its a group making the decisions for indaviduals that should be made at a personal level. It wouldn't be much different. It's an overextension of power by anyone. The owners of Belvederes should have decided their own smoking policy and the patrons would have been free to support it or not based on how they felt about it. If the staff (mostly smokers there and most bars) felt that the allowing of smoking in the place was a mistreatment they would be free to start a boycott..
The problem with a direct democracy idea is that the majority doesn't know whats best for an individual. We have to make decisions for ourselves. Neither the elected officials or the voting majority (in the hypothetical case of a direct democracy) would have seen the consequence of the smoking ban affecting all ages shows as it has because they are not capable of knowing whats best for everybody. The decision is best made by those directly involved.

[burnburnburn]

all i know is it blows.

[burnburnburn]

yeah, modern formations, garfield and roboto are sweet but roboto doesnt have very many shows anymore and modern formations doesnt book punk for the most part. Defintley let me know about that basement show once you get details
thanks