Shut Up and Go to Bed!

On Wednesday, December 6, city health secretary Dr. Momcilo Babic introduced an initiative by his department to limit the working hours of all cafes, discos, restaurants and other favorite night spots which serve alcohol and have them close by midnight. Babic said those places "especially, after midnight, become places where young people consume alcohol, enjoy and sell drugs and commit crimes including violence".

The midnight curfew would not include hotel bars, night clubs, cabarets and casinos.

Babic also wants a ban on serving liquor to anyone under the age of 18 everywhere in the city. He explained that kids with hangovers after a night on the town slept through classes or didn't go to school and invoked "world experience" claiming other countries had imposed those measures earlier with positive results in combating alcohol and drug dependency and under aged crime.

Dr. Dragoljub Djokic, head of the prevention center at the dependency hospital said night spots "are a social environment that stimulates drug abuse, crime and similar occurrences" he added that the best sleep was between 23:00 and 03:00 and that young people should be offered alternatives such as sports and culture clubs.

The health secretary's idea drew responses from many teachers, parents, pensioners and most importantly Zoran Milosevic, head of the city government who said the decision to change licensing hours would be introduced soon, by January 15 at the latest. The death penalty to Belgrade's night life is expected to come at a session of the city assembly on December 14.

"If they adopt the decision, the next step is to allow the police to shoot at anyone on the streets after midnight," an angry 17 year old commented, voicing the opinion of his generation. Many sociologists and psychologists, as well as cafe and disco owners, are unhappy with the idea if it doesn't come with wider action in society.

"We didn't sell liquor to the under aged, they didn't come in here," Jovan Jaksic owner of the Dvoriste cafe gallery told VREME. "In the five years since we opened, there hasn't been a single incident but we have had a large number of exhibitions, promotions and fashion reviews in the 19:00 to 03:00 hours period. We created our image on working at night and invested a lot of effort to get all the permits (most of the cafes in the city have licenses to stay open till midnight but stay open longer). We got all the paperwork and the city authorities decide to impose this decision. I'm sure those problems can't be solved through bans."

Other owners affected by the ban voiced similar opinions. Akademija disco owner Milan Atanaskovic said he supports the ban on liquor for the under aged but doesn't believe the decision will be adopted "because it would be a paradox for Belgrade to enter the year 2000 in bed after midnight".

When Akademija was opened and soon became one of the best known discos in Europe, cafes, discos and night clubs sprouted everywhere and in the mid-1980s Belgrade began looking like other European capitals. The slow death of the "rule of law", started after the anti-bureaucracy revolution and stepped up during the war, caused chaos in regulations on opening hours. A number of cafes and clubs opened all night but were not recommended without body armor. A number of decent spots came with them: rock, jazz and blues clubs, cafe galleries and discos that stay open late at night without incidents except in cases where the owner can't or won't come to terms with racketeers. The closure of those clubs means the owners, bar staff and waiters will lose their jobs, the state will lose taxes and guests will loose a favorite spot.

The city health secretariat deserves credit for reminding people of the terrifying growth of alcoholism, drug abuse and crime, especially among minors. Those problems are huge and it's going to take a lot of will, money, expertise and patience to solve them with coordinated action by parents, doctors, psychologists, sociologists and the police. Even that isn't enough since experience in other countries shows that the problem is almost unsolvable but can be eased. The problem is that Babic wants a drastic step which risks making things worse. No one has criticized the idea on selling liquor to minors; after all that is the law in many countries. If the authorities do decide to take that step they should go all the way and ban the sale of liquor to minors in all stores. Minors can't get into Akademija or Trezor but they can buy liquor in any shop. That ban would step on the toes of many big state owned companies that sell or produce alcohol and it's doubtful whether the city authorities want to do that.

The drug problem is perhaps more serious but Vladislav Tomanic, organizer at the Plato club told VREME that "kids don't take drugs because of discos". "That would be like banning cars at night because a lot of people drink and drive," he added and the same could be said of juvenile crime.

The police tolerated even the most dangerous criminals who did things against political émigrés and later became heroes of this war through the media and with the support of the military and police. Logically, young people identify with these anti-heroes and the police should now tackle the mess they made.

The efforts to close everything by midnight are obviously senseless and the exemption of hotel bars and casinos has drawn reactions from conspiracy theorists. Authorities that prefer the use of force over arguments are naturally wary of everything including pluralism in culture and Belgrade has become a place where you can hear jazz, blues, evergreen, rock 'n' roll, funk, disco, techno, hip-hop, house acid jazz or any other internationally popular music. People have their favorite night spots which they chose because the music is right, the prices are low, the mood is good. The closure of those places after midnight will force many people to spend money in hotel bars and casinos.

The attempt to send Belgrade to bed by midnight seems to have failed and other similar efforts will probably get the same treatment. Not because of pressure from the "democratic public" but because of the traditional incompetence of the socialist state in implementing its own regulations fully.