Unlicensed Allston club to go before licensing board

5:25: do you believe that we the people (acting through our government) have a right to:

• Require that restaurants have their kitchens inspected, not use unsafe food, maintain proper temperatures in their refrigerators and dishwashing water, etc?
• Require that the elevators in office buildings or apartment buildings be inspected and maintained?
• Require that hotels keep their smoke detectors working properly?
• Require that cars operated on the public roads have working brakes?

If your answer to all of these is "no", then you are consistent. If your answer to any of them is "yes", then the question seems to be "where do we draw the line?" rather than whether or not any government regulation is acceptable.

Lol what the hell is a "norm"? Sorry I don't get together with a bunch of broke hipsters in a basement to listen to shitty bands.

Even though that's the shittiest comparison you could have come up with, I do sort of agree with you. My use of "hitch" was more geared towards: kerfuffles, fights, fuses being blown...all of which happens at legit clubs too.

Illegal basement and loft shows could, under the right circumstances, be extremely dangerous...but, I've never heard of that happening. Not sure exactly why nothing catastrophic goes wrong, exactly. Perhaps since the crowds tend to have people who live in the house, or are friends of people who live in their, they tend to keep a watchful eye? Possibly.

Look at how many problems happen at legal venues vs. "illegal venues" without permits. It is about how things are run, not what permits you have.

yo dog, don't leave your house. something might maybe happen.

It is just the same as, say, having a 20 person party at a house with a backyard. Under legal standards, the lack of permits would make this said 20 person gathering illegal...but how often is that the case?

I'd argue that there are a number of pretty obvious factors:

• Once you collect a cover charge, then you're clearly running a commercial event and not a private party.
• Just because you don't collect a cover charge doesn't place you in the clear -- there are plenty of times when commercial venues offer free admission, but they're still unambiguously commercial venues.
• if all the attendees at your party are personally known by the host and personally, individually, invited by the host, that's pretty strong evidence that it's a private party and not a commercial event.
• if on the other hand, there is a broadcast invitation (by "broadcast" I mean, sent to large numbers of people who aren't individually invited by the host, then that militates against it being a private party.

Lots of factors. Add them up - I hate to fall back to "you know it when you see it," but there's a difference between a private party and a public event, and I'm perfectly fine with the latter being held to a higher standard of public safety.

[...]a few individuals for providing a venue with what means they have to allow others entertainment[...]

You could make an analogous argument about people who can't afford a proper restaurant kitchen with refrigeration and sanitary dishwashing, using "what means they have" to allow others tasty homecooked meals.

There's a good argument that people ought to be allowed to do this, and there's an equally good argument that anyone dealing with an establishment that serves the public should be able to expect that certain minimum standards of health, safety, etc. be enforced.

There's no obvious answer.... I don't think a kid running a lemonade stand ought to be required to be serv-safe certified and licensed, but, on the other hand, anyone operating anything that has the look and feel of a restaurant ought to be. The question is always where and how to draw the line.