It sounds like it belongs on a list of weird, obsolete laws in America, alongside the Alaskan statute against giving a moose a beer or Idaho's allowance for cannibalism in life-or-death situations. But New York City's cabaret law , which bans three or more people from dancing in a club or bar that lacks a special license, is a strange old law that is still very much in effect.

According to a 1987 article in the New York Times, the cabaret law was meant to ensure fire safety, enforce occupancy limits, and monitor the moral character of club owners. However, the original legislation not only banned dancing in unlicensed clubs, but also limited permitted instruments to strings, keyboards, and electronic soundsystems—leaving out jazz staples like wind, percussion, and brass. In addition, it prohibited more than three musicians from playing at one time—provisions that impacted Harlem jazz clubs and jazz bands the most.

Unique in the nation, though similar to prohibitions on dancing in some other parts of the world , New York's cabaret law has been on the city's books for nearly a century. It was introduced under Mayor Jimmy Walker in 1926, with the goal of making it easier for police to control speakeasies and clubs that were illegally serving alcohol under Prohibition. Since then, the law has gone unenforced for long periods, been amended several times, and become a focus of furious political conflict—but it has never been repealed. As a result, its use by the authorities to enforce institutional racism and classism has become a sort of secret history of New York nightlife.

Under the cabaret law, owners of establishments that wish to allow dancing must apply for a special "Cabaret License" through a notoriously difficult process. Before the license is granted, applicants must jump through several bureaucratic hoops, like seeking approvals from the building and fire departments, installing surveillance cameras, and paying fees ranging from $300 to $1,000. As of last year, according to the city's department of consumer affairs , only about 127 of the city's more than 12,000 clubs and bars actually have cabaret licenses.

Amidst the burgeoning New York jazz scene in the following decades, authorities disproportionately suspended the cabaret cards of black musicians. According to Jazz Times , those who lost their cards included Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, and J.J. Johnson, many of whom were at the peaks of their careers and, after losing their ability to perform in the city, faced decline or ruin.

In 1943, the cabaret law's reach was extended, with a requirement that all New York City musicians carry a "cabaret card" to perform at bars and clubs. Musicians had to go to the police department's licensing division to be fingerprinted, photographed, and subjected to interrogations about their personal life—mostly focused on their potential drug use—before they could be certified as worthy and wholesome. Cards had to be renewed every two years, and the authorities were free to revoke or deny their renewal at will.

"My right to pursue my chosen profession has been taken away, and my wife and three children who are innocent of any wrongdoing are suffering," Charlie Parker wrote to the State Liquor Authority, after a suspended sentence for heroin possession led to the revocation of his card in 1951. According to Reason, Parker's card was reinstated in 1953, but he died in 1955—partly from conditions related to stress and self-destructive tendencies built up during his two years without a card.

You started moving a little bit, and the security came and stopped you, and said you cannot dance. It got that ridiculous.__—Sophia Lamar

Stand-up comedian Lord Buckley was dragged off stage at a club by plainclothes officers and had his card suspended in 1960 because he had neglected to inform the police of two minor arrests during his cabaret card application. Lord Buckley died of a stroke only a few weeks later.

In response, writer Harold L. Humes convened a "Citizens' Emergency Committee" of well-known members of the New York intelligentsia, bringing attention to what he described as "the exquisite Chinese torture that passes for the standard operating procedure of the Police Cabaret Bureau."

Buckley's death only added fuel to the scandal's fire, and in 1961, Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. made the conciliatory step of taking the cabaret cards out of the New York City Police Department's control. Nevertheless, it took the involvement of Frank Sinatra to finally get rid of the card system entirely. Sinatra had publicly described the application and investigation process as "demeaning," and refused to play in New York during the prime of his career. Finally, at a City Council meeting in 1967 that included a reading of a message from Sinatra, the card system was finally abolished, ending a nearly decade-long struggle by musicians and other cultural figures.

The cabaret law was amended again in 1986 and 1988 to remove the "three-musicians" rule and restrictions on jazz instruments. But its mark had already been left on jazz culture. "The places in which jazz musicians can play can probably be counted on two hands," wrote the same New York Times article from 1987. "So, the vestigal cabaret law continues to jeopardize the growth and maturation of America's most imaginative and important contribution to world music."