Until Monday, there was a rule in Portland that essentially said you could only have so much fun within any given 100 feet of downtown.

I had no idea this existed.

For roughly three decades, if a downtown business had an entertainment license, another business within 100 feet generally couldn't get one too. We're talking live music, DJs, dancing, drag shows, theater. Not 100 feet from the stage, either. The city measured from the businesses' entrances.

Which is how, earlier this year, Cocktail Mary moved into its new home at 30 Market Street above Oun Lido’s and discovered it couldn't get a regular entertainment license because Lincoln's, at 36 Market Street, was too close.

Six street numbers apart. Apparently a dangerous concentration of merriment.

This sounds completely insane until you go back to the Portland that created it.

The Old Port in the 1990s was a very different animal. In the early 1980s, Wharf Street was still easy to miss. It didn't even make it onto some tourist maps, and the merchants who had set up shop there were trying just about anything to get people to come down, including open-air markets with farmers, artists and craftspeople. It was a little cobblestone lane full of shops and galleries that Portland was still figuring out what to do with. Then, slowly at first and all at once after that, the bars took over.

By the 1990s, the western end of Wharf Street had become one of the rowdier corners of the Old Port, packed with places like Industry, Iguana and the Forge. Dana Street, who opened Street & Co. there in 1989, later called those years “rough and tumble,” which feels almost generous. Fights broke out. People drank all day and well into the night. One longtime shopkeeper remembered a bar across the street where customers occasionally drove their motorcycles straight through the door. Not parked outside with the engines running. Inside the bar.

Which, I'll admit, makes today's Old Port feel slightly less dangerous.

By 1995, the city had had enough. After a stretch of fights, public drunkenness and increasingly ugly nights in the Old Port, the City Council put a six-month moratorium on new bars. But, things didn't exactly settle down from there. By the end of the decade, police were dealing with street and motorcycle gangs gathering downtown, and in 2002 they said they had confiscated at least ten guns from gang members in the Old Port. At that point, Portland wasn't trying to make nightlife more interesting. It was trying to keep a lid on it.

So Portland did what cities do when human beings become difficult.

It started making rules.

One of them became known as the "business dispersal requirement." The thinking was pretty simple: if several bars dump several hundred drunk people onto the same block at 1 a.m., things have a tendency to go sideways. Spread out the bars, spread out the people, make the whole thing easier to police.

And when Portland created its Downtown Entertainment Overlay Zone in 2007, it kept that 100-foot separation.

The actual ordinance is wonderfully dramatic about why. It talks about large late-night crowds, fights, assaults, disorderly conduct and situations that could put both innocent bystanders and police officers in danger.

From what I have gathered, Portland wasn't worried about someone playing an acoustic guitar during dinner. It was worried about Wharf Street turning into a small cobblestoned Thunderdome every Saturday night.

The problem is that laws tend to stick around longer than the problems that created them.

And this year it started to restrict on our beloved Cocktail Mary.

Owner Isaac MacDougal had moved the bar from Washington Avenue to Market Street into a space that had already been built out for a bar and nightclub. Only after signing the lease did he learn that Lincoln's nearby meant Cocktail Mary couldn't get the license it needed to regularly host the DJs, dancing and drag nights it was known for.

It wasn't just Cocktail Mary, either. Creative Portland ran into the same rule while trying to put live bands in the plaza at 511 Congress Street as part of its Third Wednesdays events.

At that point, the question became pretty obvious.

What exactly are we protecting ourselves from anymore?

And so on Monday night, August 24, the City Council voted unanimously to get rid of the law.

I love finding things like this because they're little fossils of the city.

Thirty years ago, Portland was worried about too many bars, too many people and too much life concentrated on a few blocks of the Old Port.

Today we're talking about empty storefronts, supporting downtown businesses, creating more places for artists to perform and giving people more reasons to stick around after dinner.

Same brick buildings. Same cobblestones. Completely different problem.

And honestly, I’m proud of the city for recognizing that. Rules like this are easy to leave buried in the code simply because they’ve been there forever. It takes a little more effort to look around, realize the city has changed, and decide the rules should change with it.

After thirty years, Portland finally did.

The first thing I noticed when I walked into Franciska was that it was warm. Actually warm. The kind of warm that would normally make you wonder whether somebody should crack a window, except here it felt completely right.

Franciska is a small Argentine restaurant on Middle Street, and the room is tiny. People are packed in close, everyone is talking over everyone else, glasses are hitting the table, plates are moving past your shoulder, and within about five minutes the whole place starts to feel less like a restaurant and more like somebody's very good dinner party.

Nobody seems particularly concerned about giving you six feet of personal space or making sure the room is held at a perfect 68 degrees. It is warm because the kitchen is working. It is loud because people are eating and drinking and talking.

You are close enough to the next table that you will almost certainly find yourself quietly trying to see what they ordered. It feels lived in, which is surprisingly hard to manufacture in a restaurant. Franciska has it.

We started with the in-house sourdough focaccia and chimichurri butter, which is already a pretty convincing argument for putting chimichurri butter on basically everything. Then came ceviche, beef carpaccio and two orders of the braised short rib empanadas.

Then came dessert.

There had been a peach pie on the menu that most of the table wanted, while I had been quietly campaigning for the flan. This was not going particularly well because somebody described flan as "solid pudding," which is technically not entirely wrong but is also maybe the least seductive description of a dessert ever spoken aloud.

Right before we ordered, we found out they had sold out of the peach pie. Everyone else was disappointed. I was thrilled.

The flan arrived, and within a few minutes the same people who had just dismissed it as solid pudding were fighting over the plate. Within five minutes, licking it clean was starting to feel completely reasonable.

It was absurdly good. Silky, deeply caramelized, rich without being heavy, with a little honey-whipped cream on top.

So if you're going, bring a few people you actually like, order enough to pass things around, and do not skip the flan.

🐶 Jake – 2 yrs
Okay, I’m obviously a little biased toward this one. Jake is a sweet little guy with endless wiggles who loves people and is ready to dance his way into someone’s home.

🐱 Mickey – 8 yrs
A sweet, gentle gentleman who wants a cozy bed and plenty of cheek rubs. Mickey is diabetic and needs a little extra care, but in return you get one very lovely, very cuddly roommate.

🐰 Bun Bun & Avalon – 3 yrs
Our first bunnies! These two are bonded best friends, so they’re a package deal. They love snuggling, grooming each other, and would very much like a home with plenty of room for binkies.

If the link doesn’t open anymore, it means they’ve already been adopted!

Western Promenade Concert Series @ Western Promenade | 7:30 pm | Free

Jack Fossett's Guitar Party w/ Michael Corleto @ Vinegar Hill Music Theatre | 8 pm | 🎟️ $26.50

PMA Films: Mary Oliver, Saved by the Beauty of the World @ Portland Museum of Art | 3:30 pm | 🎟️ $7

Matthew Loyal @ The Thirsty Pig | 6 pm | Free

Eddie Dickhaut & Reggae Friends @ Portland Lobster Company | 6:30 pm | Free

Hike the New Section of the Eastern Trail @ Wainwright Sports Complex | 5 pm | Free

Square to Square: Heather Lynn + Melvin Gradiz Band @ Congress Square Park | 6 pm | Free

Kenya Hall @ Bayside Bowl Roof | 6 pm | 🎟️ $15

Runnner w/ Pleasure Systems and Hello Shark @ SPACE | 8 pm | 🎟️ $18

The Amazing Acro-Cats @ The Hill Arts | 7 pm | 🎟️ $35

REPRISE: Iconic Phish Shows (Night One) @ Portland House of Music | 9 pm | 🎟️ $20

En-Noble x Allagash: Ghanaian Dinner & Beer Pairings @ En-Noble | 🎟️ $85

Aliens Exist: A Blink-182 Tribute @ Live at Madrid's | 7 pm | 🎟️ $15

The Last Class: A Jazzercize Play @ SPACE | 7:30 pm | 🎟️

An Enemy of the People - PTF @ Blossom ArtsLab | 7:30 pm | 🎟️ $30

Emil Wakim @ Empire Comedy Club | 7 pm | 🎟️ $18

Dusk to Dark: Paddle the Presumpscot @ Lincoln Street Ice Rink, Westbrook | 7:30 pm | 🎟️ $70

Scotty Saints & The True Believers @ Geno's Rock Club | 7 pm | 🎟️ $10.25

Portland Farmers' Market @ Deering Oaks Park | 7 am | Free

Jake Shimabukuro @ Aura | 8 pm | 🎟️ $50

The Meditations @ Bayside Bowl | 8 pm | 🎟️ $25

Fitter Happier: A Tribute to Radiohead @ Live at Madrid's | 7 pm | 🎟️ $15

Portland Hearts of Pine vs. Fort Wayne FC @ Fitzpatrick Stadium | 7 pm | 🎟️ $56

Quirky Cruise-In for the Animal Refuge League @ 1000 Brighton Ave | 1 pm | Free

Indie Ladle Vegan Lobster Roll Pop-Up @ Night Mares | Free

Jordan Davis w/ Matt Lang @ Thompson's Point | 6 pm | 🎟️ $59.50

Pet Rock in the Park @ Deering Oaks Park | 11 am | Free

Undertow Brass Band w/ DJ red tide @ SPACE | 8 pm | 🎟️ $16

Silent Movie Sunday: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea @ Congress Square Park | 7:30 pm | Free

Maine Middle Eastern Orchestra @ Portland Conservatory of Music | 2 pm | 🎟️ $28

Million Dollar Quartet @ Maine State Music Theatre | 2 pm | 🎟️ $60

Until next week,
— Jake Newman