Print“I’m sorry, you can’t come in. No ID, no entrance,” a bouncer tells my friend outside Terminal 5 in midtown.
“I don’t want to drink, I just left my ID at home,” my friend replies, trying to gain admission to a show he came all the way from Boston to see.
“Sorry, no exceptions,” he’s told, as he is pushed aside to let in those in line behind him.
Anyone who has been to a concert in New York has had their ID checked by some large, unfriendly bouncer, who has either roughly scraped an X onto the back of their hand or strangled their wrist with a brightly colored wristband. But even if the show is 18+, the policy for most city venues is that students who don’t bring an ID at all won’t be admitted to the concert.
The incident with my friend made me reevaluate the entire system that has shaped my participation in the city’s music scene since arriving on campus. Until this year, no matter how much I wanted to see a band, I not only had to wait until they came to the city, but also until they came to a venue that was not restricted to 21+.
But what purpose do these age restrictions serve, exactly, when almost all venues serve alcohol regardless of who is admitted? Whether a show is 21+, 19+, 18+, 16+, or “all ages,” the five door policies city venues use, the bar is open to those who can prove their 1980s generation.
Webster Hall, a venue that within a given month will employ four out of five of the different age restrictions, has an explanation, however illogical it may be. Within the walls of the venue, there are two different companies that put on concerts: Webster Hall, and The Bowery Presents. A representative of Webster Hall explains that Bowery Presents concerts are either 18+ or 16+, but Webster Hall is always 19+ “because of our [the venue’s] nightclub area.” When asked why they would complicate things with a 19+ restriction in addition to the two others, some of which occur on the same night, the representative explained that it “basically just assures college age and older.”
But if you browse through their listed concerts, you’ll find that some of their shows are listed as “all ages” with no explanation as to why there would be a distinction between, say, the Wonder Years’s show on Wednesday, March 24 and CC senior Reni Laine’s show on Thursday, which are listed as “all ages” and 19+, respectively.
The fact that Webster Hall has a night club as well as a concert venue gives it more of a sense of purpose in restricting the crowd to college-age and above, for what many likely concerned parents would argue is for the “safety” of younger students. But if this logic were universal, forty year old men probably shouldn’t be admitted to Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus concerts, many of which are held in venues that serve alcohol. At the point where venues try to regulate the crowd based on age to assure a certain demographic, it makes just as much sense to put an upper limit on age as well.
The question must then be asked what determines if a show is appropriate for high school students, and which are for more mature college audiences? On a similar note, what is gained from distinguishing between 21+ shows and other shows where alcohol is also served? The way I see it, an explicit 21+ limit exists for one of two reasons, given that IDs are already checked at all concerts regardless of age: the venue acknowledges their inability to adequately monitor alcohol consumption, or the venue sees the opportunity to make more money by allowing only concert-goers of alcohol purchasing age.
Either way, the venue and the consumers are hurt in the long run. “I much prefer younger, sober crowds,” explains a bouncer who goes by only “D,” one night at the Music Hall of Williamsburg. “The drunker they are, the harder they are to deal with. ... Kids don’t start fights and don’t get up in your face.” More than one employee of Music Hall, a small venue in Brooklyn, notes the difficulties of belligerent or uncooperative and inebriated patrons.
The Bowery Presents, which owns Music Hall of Williamsburg, Terminal 5, The Bowery Ballroom, the Wellmont Theater, and the Mercury Lounge, and has a partnership with Webster Hall, was contacted but declined to comment on the topic. As such a big organization, and one so pivotal to the city’s music scene, you’d think they’d be more open about their age restrictions, or at least more consistent. And for an organization with such strict rules at their doors—not letting in anyone who doesn’t have an ID, even at a 16+ show—one would expect the same level of enforcement once downstairs at their bar.
At almost every concert I’ve been to at Music Hall, Terminal 5, or the Bowery, no one checks to see if you have one of their fluorescent wristbands or if the back of your hands are tagged as they distractedly hand over a foamy Blue Moon. Purchasing two drinks at once is commonplace, with no one checking who is drinking in the concert hall at any given point in the night.
City students inevitably find ways around the bouncers’ sharpies... “I basically came to Columbia for the city’s music scene. ... I got my fake during NSOP. I didn’t waste any time,” says Lucy, a sophomore in CC who asked to withold her full name due to legal concerns. But Lucy, like a number of other students, didn’t drop a clean hundred on a fake ID to go bar hopping or drink at First Friday: “My cousin who lived here before I came here for school was always talking about Cake Shop, and I really wanted to go.” Cake Shop, a small venue downtown, has over 40 concerts a month, one of which might be under 21, if you are lucky. “I couldn’t really justify waiting until senior year,” she says.
And while Lucy’s story is pretty common, Josh Warber’s, a senior at a high school in Brooklyn, isn’t. “My fake says I’m 23 ... it said 21 when I got it, though, I’m not trying to pull a McLovin,” Josh jokes. “I got it to see shows,” he continues, looking around for any lurking Music Hall employees as he nervously sips from his beer. “I really wanted to see The Shins but it was 18+. ... I figured since I was getting a fake I might as well be able to drink too, but that’s really not why I got it,” he explains.
“No one’s ever said anything to me about it,” Lucy says when asked about getting in trouble with the bouncers. Josh adds, “I definitely get a weird look from some of the bartenders at the venues, but it’s not like they don’t serve me.”
Despite these venues’ attempted strict enforcement at their posted lower age limits, the system as a whole is ineffective and arbitrary. Performers don’t determine whether or not their show is open to everyone, or just those individuals capable of producing an acceptable photo ID. It is entirely the venue’s deicision who is allowed to see what band. The venue obviously is focused on making money, but as it stands, when the bars within the venues don’t enforce the laws they purport at the doors—everyone can buy alcohol anyway.
And in the economy where the largest demographic of concertgoers—twenty-somethings fresh out of college trying to make it in the city—is the hardest hit, it is surprising that venues post 21+ age restrictions limiting their audience when they could potentially sell out shows by allowing younger fans entry.
“Look, I just do my job,” says D as he checks someone whose hand has been tagged by another bouncer. “I stop who I can,” he continues, “but if kids want to get in, they’re gonna find a way in. What can you do?”