Creative Loafing’s Mayor of Ponce laments the end of a Friday night tradition: Decatur Social Club at Azul…

“It was a wonderful four years of sweaty dancing to “Deceptacon” on top of the bench seats inside the cramp, dark restaurant. No matter what show you went to that night, you were sure to converge in Decatur for after hours drinking of cheap PBR pitchers and cheaper shots of Jager. Its where your MySpace friends came to life. DSC got you laid, made you friends, lost your cell phone and/or camera, and hopefully caused irre-hep-table damage to your liver and brain cells.

And that’s only if you were doing it right.”

Craig himself notes the end of an era over on his blog kissatlanta.

The CL post also notes to “stay tuned for coverage of Preston Craig’s new weekly East Atlanta pub crawl.”

[h/t:InDecatur]

[photo courtesty of kissatlanta]

I’ve been avoiding this story ’til now, because to me it seems like one big overreaction.  Just because Buckhead had trouble with clubs that stayed open late, doesn’t mean the same sort of perfect storm will happen in DeKalb.  And even if DeKalb rolled back closing times, it doesn’t mean that everyone is going to flock to Decatur (Preston Craig’s Decatur Social Club has already crammed Azul to its max capacity).

Let’s see what kind of crime data the commission comes up with over the next month before rushing to judgment, because right now it all just seems like speculation.

The commission will revisit this issue on Nov. 13th.