Sunday, September 24, 2006

Post Continues to Club Nightlife Industry

In what amounts to their own version of jihad, the NY Post continues today to relentlessly target the city's bars and clubs. This time it is a focus on promoters who are allegedly using underage "hotties" to lure customers into nightlife venues.

Once again, however, the focus of the article is on the alleged laxity of club owners and completely ignores some of the very facts that are brought out in the story. Foremost among these is the following observation of a promoter: "I have thousands of 18-20 year olds looking for parties. It's a market that's not being served."

Which is precisely the point. Number one, it is a huge market of young folks for whom the legal drinking age holds little meaning; and secondly it is, as the promoter says, a market that is largely unserved. Doesn't this mean that the great majority of club owners are doing the right thing?

That would be a proper conclusion and it's too bad, albeit not surprising, that the Post fails to pursue this to a logical conclusion: something needs to be done about the impunity with which young adults treat the drinking age limits. Oh yes, the Post also reports that club owners, owing to all of the hysterical scrutiny, are "scared s...less." So where is the balanced piece about the efforts by the huge majority of responsible club owners?