An attempt to dictate what style of music a Dinkytown restaurant can play sparked a lively debate on free speech at Friday’s City Council meeting.

Third Ward Council Member Diane Hofstede sought to amend a liquor license agreement between the city and the Loring Pasta Bar that would stipulate that any live music played at the bar on Mondays and Tuesdays would be the same style as that which is performed there the rest of the week. But that struck 10th Ward Council Member Ralph Remington, who represents dozens of bars in the Uptown area, as unreasonable.

“Can we regulate this?” he asked city attorney Jay Heffern. “It seems like a constitutional question to me.”

Heffern assured Remington that it was within the city’s rights to dictate the sort of music a bar can feature, because it’s related to the bar’s operation. “I think it’s appropriate,” he said.

Hofstede explained that she was only trying to provide the sort of atmosphere the neighborhood would prefer, noting that the restaurant’s owner, Jason McLean, had agreed to the stipulation. But Lisa Goodman, whose ward includes downtown, said it would create a dangerous precedent that would affect hundreds of bars. “This takes us down the road to a very slippery slope,” she said. “I can only imagine the trouble I’m going to have downtown now.”

Goodman suggested that any concerns about the type of music played at a bar should be addressed through the city’s noise ordinance, and not as a condition of a liquor license.

Hofstede offered to drop language referring to the style of music performed and stipulate instead that any “substantial” change to a bar’s entertainment would be subject to city approval, but that, too, was a nonstarter, as council members argued it was too vague to be enforceable.

With little support among her colleagues, Hofstede agreed to send the matter back to committee for more discussion.