Michael Baxter spent last night at the Sunnyvale City Hall trying to explain to the city council of Sunnyvale, California, that Bellydancers should be allowed to perform in the presence of alcohol.

and he won!

On a vote of 5 - 2 in favor of Michael Baxter and Taverna Bistro (our favorite Turkish restaurant) it was decided that having a liquor licence would not change the family atmosphere already established in the small, neighborhood restaurant, and that although council memebers noted that bellydancing "can get really racy" - it was decided that it probably wouldn't pose an imminent public safety risk.

Yay for Michael Baxter! He not only takes gorgeous photos of us! He stands up and fights for our right to bellydance. He spends his evenings arguing that bellydancing is not stripping! He explains to government officials that bellydancing is a family-friendly, traditional, and ancient form of entertainment and artistry.

Thanks, Michael!
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Sandra
offline Sandra
SF Bay Area
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  • Re: Michael Baxter - Fighting for our right to Belly Dance!

    Tue, March 27, 2007 - 4:27 PM
    Thank-you so much Sandra!

    I want to mention that my wife Becky (who totally loves Taverna Bistro) also was with us the entire time. Also, we had a wonderful quotation by Michelle that I presented.

    We were before the Sunnyvale Planning Commission. I helped the owner with an appeal of an initial license grant for an upgrade to the restaurant, which was fine, except that it SPECIFICALLY disallowed belly dancing! We appealed that. The public safety input on this application was inititially negative, because (IMHO) there was conflation with downtown street bar problems late at night. In fact, the Staff Report literally alluded to belly dancing being like adult entertainment!! One commissioner took serious umbrage at those statements, and felt they never have been entered into the report! Public safety re-evaluated the situation, and realized numerous aspects of this family restaurant were rather unlike what they had pre-supposed. So, even though there was an appeal, in the mean time until the hearing, the City Staff actually CHANGED their position from the initial DENY to GRANT.

    But at the meeting, we had to wait 4 hours through alternatively interesting and mind-numbing technical real-estate, construction, traffic, and city, state and other urban area codes in order to get our slot.

    Then it was 25 minutes of "Huh? Why is this even here?...." and some giggles. Even some actual chiding of the City Staff by some of the commissioners on the Planning Commission for even bringing this up. But we also faced some actual official and unbelievable hostility. At that moment I actually suddenly felt a close kinship with all of my belly dancer friends. I personally at that time experienced numerous stereotypes about belly dancers, and it made me very sad. This very phenomena was in fact warned about in Michelle's prescient statement that I quoted in the presentation.

    If you were watching late-night cable access on Sunnyvale, after hours and hours of talk about traffic and huge project development at about 2315 hrs (11:15PM), the content was suddenly VERY different :-). I was up for a 180-second presentation that featured photos (showing full-service bars) from various area restaurants ... starring SANDRA and MICHELLE!

    A night to remember.

    I love The Dance, and belly dancers. Wish you all well.

    Blessings and Light,
    Michael
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    • Salena
      Salena
      offline 62

      Re: Michael Baxter - Fighting for our right to Belly Dance!

      Wed, March 28, 2007 - 10:53 AM
      BRAVO Michael
      and Michelle for your extraordinary team effort!
      Wow. It still never ceases to amaze me, I've seen the raised eyebrows before when you mention Belly Dance, but it's outrageous that there are folks in the world who still see the dance as a clear-and-present-danger to public safety and families when combined with a glass of Chardonay............
      I guess the key word here is "see"..........clearly most have never really seen a wonderful dancer or experienced the beautiful music!
      Well Done You!
      Salena
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    • Zyphire
      Zyphire
      offline 42

      Re: Michael Baxter - Fighting for our right to Belly Dance!

      Fri, March 30, 2007 - 4:23 PM
      There is no THANK YOU big enough for you, Michael! You do so much for our dance community out of the kindness of your heart and we are lucky to have you! Thank you also to Becky, Sandra and Michelle for your love of what we do :-) It takes fighters like you and a society that is sometimes ignorant of the true art that we do

      *HUGS*
      Zyphire
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