FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) _ Officials in a western Arkansas city say residents can
finally kick off their Sunday shoes.
Fort Smith city directors recently repealed a 1953 ordinance essentially
outlawing public dancing on Sundays. Locals who knew about it called it the
“Footloose” ordinance, nicknamed for the 1984 movie starring Kevin Bacon about
a town banning dancing and rock music.
City Director Andre Good introduced the repeal after a resident told him about
the antiquated law, which barred the operation of public dance halls or any
place with dancing on Sundays.
The law’s emergency clause said public dancing on the day “greatly endangers
the public health, safety and welfare.”
A city spokeswoman says no one’s been arrested or ticketed in two decades for
cutting loose on Sundays. Even so, Good says, the city shouldn’t be able to
impose “some outdated, outmoded morality code.”
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