(Here is an email I wrote to many of my friends here in LA. I figured you all might want to know about it as well....)

Hey,

Just wanted to bring this to your attention. Apparently on Friday night, club 1015 (Spundae in SF) was raided by the DEA and ABC under the umbrella of "Operation X-Out", an attempt to rid California nightclubs of Ecstasy use/sales. This happened at Spundae @ Circus in L.A. on Saturday night as well, where allegedly 10,000 pills were confiscated and 25 ppl, including 6 Circus employees, were arrested. The following links provide more detail:

www.abclocal.go.com/kabc/news/120902_nw_club_raid.html

www.cnn.com/2002/US/West/11/22/club.drugs.ap/index.html

http://pub80.ezboard.com/fspundae44...icID=6287.topic (this one is from the Spundae messageboard)

What the govn't will now attempt to do is get the liquor license revoked for every "rave nightclub", basically shutting the venue down. No alcohol sales = no customers = no profits. This is probably going to end up being very detrimental to our scene, many if not most of the clubs we attend weekly are going to face the same investigations, if they haven't already. The stereotype of "techno music" and "techno clubs" and "raves" are all being used against us by the govn't, and with great effect. I know that there are huge drug sales & consumption at these clubs, no one can deny or refute that. And sadly this is probably what will be the eventual end of this scene, at least for clubbing. However, Gene La Pietra, owner of Circus & Arena clubs, will be making a statement in defense of his clubs this afternoon. Check tonite's local news broadcast, I'm sure the media will put some horrible spin on everything and make it even worse than what it already is.

Anyways, just wanted to give you a heads up.

-Mark