Source Documents for Part II – August 19, 1980 Letter from the City Attorney

This August 19, 1980 correspondence from the City Attorney to the Cuckoo’s Nest reflects the increasingly tough, aggressive posture the City assumed.Clearly, the City Attorney was annoyed at the apparent failure of the City’s attempt to resolve informally the troubles attributed to the Cuckoo’s Nest. The City Attorney refers to “continuing disturbances” at and around the Cuckoo’s Nest. There can’t be any dispute that the City attributed these “disturbances” to punks. “What ‘punk-rock’ events have you booked in the last couple of months and what events of this kind do you have scheduled for the future,” the City Attorney asks. Although the City would later claim that it was not targeting punk, this correspondence indicates the contrary.

Concerned with the “worsening trend” at the Cuckoo’s Nest, it was clear that the City was close, at this time, to concluding that the Cuckoo’s Nest was irredeemable if it would not abandon punk.