HENRYETTA, Okla. (UPI) -- An Oklahoma city abolished a nearly 40-year-old law that made it illegal to dance within 500 feet of churches or schools.

The ordinance was repealed by a unanimous vote in less than five minutes in Henryetta city council on Tuesday night.

Joni Insabella, who co-owns Rosie Lavon's Marketplace, spoke out against the strange policy after she was reminded of the ordinance while planning a Valentine's day dance at her business.

"We can't dance down here, we're too close to the church," she said.

Insabella was forced to cancel the dance after the city's Chamber of Commerce posted about it on Facebook and some residents responded angrily.

"We wanted just a good, clean, fun event. As I said, we know we're in the Bible Belt. We weren't having alcohol or anything. We just wanted it to be fun for the community," Insabella said. And the church does not care. They are our frequent shoppers over here. Church people come over all the time. They weren't the ones that had the problem.

Many Henryetta residents had forgotten about the law, which was reportedly put in place to prevent the construction of a dance club on Main Street.

"What I heard was it was to prevent a bar that wanted to build a dance club on Main Street, and they thought the drunkenness of the people wandering up and down Main Street would be a nuisance to the people of the city," Mayor Jennifer Clason said.

Attendees in city hall cheered and clapped as the ordinance was overturned, but Insabella remained baffled about the national attention the issue received.

"We can't even imagine. We can't imagine," she said. The only thing I can think of is there's probably very few towns left in the U.S. that have an ordinance like this.

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