The street that closes at eleven

The order runs to four pages and does not use the word curfew. Its effect on the block is one anyway: amplified sound is prohibited after eleven, and the businesses that depend on the hour after that have done the arithmetic.

I spent Friday and Saturday night on the street, counting shutters. Six of the fourteen ground-floor units closed earlier than their posted hours. Two owners said they would apply for the exemption. One had already read the form and concluded it was written for somebody else.

The residents who asked for the order have been asking for four years, and their complaint is not unreasonable. What neither side seems to have been told is that the exemption process takes an estimated nine weeks, which is longer than two of these businesses expect to hold their lease.