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War on Raves [article taken from Rolling Stone Magazine]
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| able.h |
I hope this is not a repost. If it is, I'll delete it. It's a good read especially for all promoters out there.
Link to the article:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n817/a11.html
THE WAR ON RAVES
Rave Promoters Busted In Wave Of Drug Crackdowns At Dance Clubs Around The U.S.
ROBERT BRUNET IS NOT THE KIND OF GUY you'd imagine being accused of running a drug den. His family had been in the New Orleans "theater business for three generations, and Brunet - a married thirty-six-year-old with three young daughters - had staged dozens of successful raves at the local State Palace Theatre. His security guards ejected or arrested anyone caught taking drugs, and he kept two ambulances parked outside the venue, in case one of any of the 3,000 ravers in attendance got sick or hurt. The whole operation, he figured, was running smoothly. That is, until last August 26th, when agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided the State Palace looking for evidence that the theater was being used as a haven for Ecstasy.
In January, Brunet, his brother Brian and promoter James "Donnie" Estopinal were indicted under the federal "crack-house statute." That law, passed in 1986, was designed to jail landlords who let their properties become overrun with drugs. But now the DEA and U.S. Attorney Eddie Jordan are applying it to music promoters in an attempt to shut down raves. The DEA argues that raves, by definition, support the use of drugs like Ecstasy, Special K, Rohypnol and GHB. To the astonishment of many, Jordan and the DEA also argue that the availability of such "drug paraphernalia" as pacifiers, glow sticks and even bottled water is evidence that promoters condone drug use.
If the charges against the Brunets and Estopinal stick, they face sentences of twenty years to life in prison. And the DEA vows that if the prosecution is successful, it will attempt to jail rave promoters around the country.
The DEAs crackdown on raves is another byproduct of the war on drugs - specifically, the DEA believes it can curb the use of Ecstasy among teens by targeting rave culture. Sen. Joseph Biden ( D-DeL ), who authored the crack-house legislation, is a proponent of the law's new use. In March, he endorsed using the law to put rave promoters in jail and also encouraged local authorities to pass laws to stop raves. In Chicago, Orlando and Seattle, authorities have already done that. And rave promoters in Los Angeles and Denver report that local authorities have made it increasingly difficult to stage events.
In Chicago - where underground parties gave birth to house music in the Eighties - club owners and managers, event producers and even performers can be fined as much as $10,000 for participating in an unlicensed rave. Mayor Richard Daley has also announced that he plans to apply the city's "drug- and ganghouse ordinance," a local version of the crack-house statute, to imprison promoters and club owners. Orlando's Orange County recently instituted a sixty-day "Dance Hall Moratorium" prohibiting new dance clubs from opening. County officials are working on a2A.Nt. nightlife curfew as well as felony background checks on late-night-club owners. Seattle's 11 teen dance ordinance" requires kids under eighteen to be accompanied to raves by a parent.
Convinced that all this legislative action constitutes a threat to the First Amendment, the American Civil Liberties Union has come to Estopinal's and the Brunets' aid in the New Orleans case. "The government is trying to get at what it sees as a social ill Ecstasy - by going after an expressive speech, which is the music," says the ACLU's Graham Boyd, chief drug-policy litigator. Boyd, who is acting as Estopinal's lawyer, considers this a free-speech case: "Performance of music to an audience is speech. And from z Live Crew to Marilyn Manson, when the government tries to censor music, they lose."
Estopinal and the Brunets were originally going to plead guilty, convinced that they could never win the case against them. But once Boyd and the ACLU got involved, the three changed their pleas, causing the U.S. attorney's office to dismiss the indictments and reopen its investigation to find more evidence. Jordan is expected to seek new indictments shortly.
Legal experts predict that Jordan will have a tough time applying the "crack-house statute" to the State Palace Theatre because he will have to convince a jury that the raves were held with the intention of promoting drug use. But as Ecstasy use climbs at a faster rate than that of any other drug, raves have become an obvious target of investigation. The Drug Abuse Warning Network, which monitors drug-related emergency-room visits and mortality statistics, noted that Ecstasy-related visits rose from 1,143 in 1994 to 2,850 in 1999, the last full year for which data is available. And in 2000, the DEA seized more than 3 million tablets of Ecstasy - a 200 percent increase from the previous year. "Parents send their kids to what they think are non-alcoholic dance parties," says DEA spokesman Tony Ryan. "And they're leaving in body bags. When we can show that these people had knowledge and sponsored the event, then they're liable."
Rave promoters argue that sponsoring an event is not the equivalent of encouraging drug use. Like the Brunets and Estopinal, many promoters and venue managers take strong measures to ensure that their parties are safe, using security guards and, in some cases, employing undercover cops to patrol the venues and boot out anyone selling or using drugs.
Denver promoter Jason Bills has staged major events without incident since 1993, investing six-figure budgets in productions that feature everyone from underground house kingpin Armand Van Helden to DJ Jazzy Jeff. In March, Bills' Together Productions booked a rave at Denver's National Western Complex, which had already gotten the licenses and permits necessary to hold the rave. The week of the event, Bills got a call from the city attorney's office, advising him that there was a "new permit" required to throw a rave. "It was called a dance-assembly permit," Bills recalls. "I went into their office, and the people there hadn't even heard of it. I think they just wanted to give us more hoops to jump through."
Bills continues, "I think it's ridiculous to assume that the sole reason I'm doing an event at the Denver Coliseum is so that people can do drugs. We do parties in convention centers and places where professional sports teams are playing, and we'd like to be held to the same standards as any other concert promoter."
"There's a perception that raves aren't music-driven at all," says Pasquale Rotella, whose Los Angeles production company, Insomniac, attracts more than 30,000 people to events featuring talent such as Moby, Fatboy Slim and Underworld. "People say, `You're there for the music? Yeah, right!' But our events cost a million dollars these days. We coordinate everything with the local authorities. Now it seems like they don't even want to work with you." Rotella says that a major concert venue where he has held two raves a year since 1995 recently bristled at the idea of adding a third event. "Five months ago they would have been completely excited about it," he says. "Now they're like, `We don't know.'"
The problem, promoters say, is the growing bias against any event that bears the name "rave." Cris Campbell, an attorney who works with Together and several other Denver promotion companies, says that city officials have approached the promoters he represents, telling them, "If you host electronic shows, we will find a way to shut you down." And Bills and Rotella both report that when they apply for event permits, the first thing city officials ask is, "Is this a rave?" When they answer yes, they're either told that they can't hold the event or are given a long list of requirements: no alcohol, no one under eighteen, limited hours. "Sixteen-year-olds can go see 'N Sync at the Pepsi Center," Bills says. "So why can't they come to my show and see Armand Van Helden?"
The ACLU's Boyd points out that the problems these promoters encounter evince the unconstitutionality of the rave crackdown. "They're using the heavy hand of government to intimidate people's speech," he says. Campbell agrees. He's organizing a group called Save Our Scene to raise money for a lawsuit that would challenge the constitutionality of the Denver anti-rave ordinances. Campbell argues that the ordinances not only violate the First Amendment but also amount to what he calls the "selective prosecution" prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment. He's organizing a grass-roots campaign to lobby county officials, "to get them to understand who we are, what we do, how we do it - and to invite them to work with us to make these events happen in the safest possible manner."
For now, cultivating relationships with local authorities could be the best way for promoters and club owners to stay out of trouble while still putting on a safe event. Last year in Detroit, DJ Carl Craig organized the Detroit Electronic Music Festival, with full support from city officials. In the course of a weekend, the festival attracted more than a million people, and, outside of incidental arrests, there were no substantial problems. Now, Craig says, the city has welcomed the festival back with open arms for at least the next two years. And New York promoter Matt E. Silver, who booked the rave events for ig's Woodstock, points to Germany's Love Parade as an example of how American rave organizers might win government favor. "The Love Parade was born out of protest against all the anti-rave laws in Berlin," he says. "It has turned into a major economic boon for the city, and they're bringing in millions in tax revenue in one weekend."
Given the government's current strategy, an American Love Parade seems unlikely anytime soon. But promoters agree that regardless of how hard authorities stomp on the scene, the music won't stop. "Whether they convict us or not," says Robert Brunet, "they can't squash an artistic form. It will find an outlet, one way or another."
The DEA argues that the availability of such "drug paraphernalia" as glow sticks and bottled water is evidence that promoters condone drug use. |
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| djkatmaus |
| That's sad. This country is getting more pathetic by the day. Until we can rid the nation of the Bidens, the Obamas, the Pelosi's, or anyone else who endorses a policed country, this kind of will continue. Joe Biden. What a tool. I'll bet he was one the thousands smoking up during Woodstock. Hopefully the next generation in charge can fix this place. |
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| MR STROKE |
| an article from 2001? |
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| djkatmaus |
| quote: | Originally posted by MR STROKE
an article from 2001? |
I'm sure they've added to it. I wonder what the revised one says. |
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| Rukes |
| quote: | Originally posted by MR STROKE
an article from 2001? |
Haha, I was going to quote this from the article:
"Sixteen-year-olds can go see 'N Sync at the Pepsi Center," Bills says. "So why can't they come to my show and see Armand Van Helden?"
and say "Well they would have to go in a time machine to see them, otherwise they would have to have seen them when they were six."
Good thing I scrolled down before replying :) |
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| R!CH |
| let's take a moment to look at this objectively, rationally if you will. joe biden didn't become vice president of the united states by weighing in on the crackhead's side of every issue. no he takes an issue concerning public health and safety and measures where the voter stands. quite frankly concerned parents and moralists vote in much larger numbers than pubescent crackheads and dodgy event promoters. nobody would even know who joe biden was today if he fought against the inevitable political tide that arose once raves devolved into teenage drug dens and appeared on the radar of middle class america. his political opponents would seize every opportunity to demonize him and swallow him alive to much fanfare in the next election cycle. on the converse, him authoring the bill he did was a political no-brainer, a gimme, like voting for veterans benefits or education. put aside your emotional blinders and open your eyes to the fact that since their inception, raves have always been places for children to gain easy access to and freely take any and all illicit drugs they wish in the shadows of all authorities. and just the same, rave promoters would turn a blind eye to it all, figuring the drug culture was a windfall to their bottom line. a bottom line that took precedence to all else. and you can blame this laissez faire approach for the political consequences that followed. meanwhile it wasn't until very recently that event promoters of all walks, some that were unfairly affected, even bothered to organize a political lobby to entertain the interest and attention of politicians. so then why would you judge the man who was a predictable product of a predictable situation with a predictable outcome as if there was a snowball's chance in hell that anything else would have come of it? sure you could label him the torch-bearer of it all, but he used his common sense and did what any of us in his shoes would have. and if he didn't do it, the next guy would have jumped at the opportunity. so if you look at this objectively, which is the only way to have a dialogue about it, the hammer was going to drop regardless. if it happened later, it would have come down harder in my opinion. |
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| Rukes |
| quote: | | Originally posted by R!CH WALL OF TEXT |
MY EYES! :crazy: |
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| Apeattack |
| quote: | Originally posted by Rukes
MY EYES! :crazy: |
haha... I was thinking the exact same thing. I made it 4 sentences in before getting a headache. |
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| R!CH |
| quote: | Originally posted by Apeattack
haha... I was thinking the exact same thing. I made it 4 sentences in before getting a headache. |
that is ok. compound sentences can be scary. take a break. watch mtv. |
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| Apeattack |
| quote: | Originally posted by R!CH
that is ok. compound sentences can be scary. take a break. watch mtv. |
Oh, you. |
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| system-7 |
| I didn't read the entire shabang Rich. Just the first two, and last two sentences. I agree, the political hammer was going to fall eventually, and it has arrived. I honestly think that with the flood of kids from the post hip-hop generation coming into the scene (hip-hop is diminishing; hence the switch to electro sound), it has exposed the substance abuse far beyond what we saw in the mid to late 90's. Evidence? Come on, when I'm at a friends BBQ and one of his younger friends tells me that everyone is rolling at Disneyland's Grad night, you know it gone to far. From Raves to Disneyland...man. |
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| djkatmaus |
| quote: | Originally posted by system-7
I didn't read the entire shabang Rich. Just the first two, and last two sentences. I agree, the political hammer was going to fall eventually, and it has arrived. I honestly think that with the flood of kids from the post hip-hop generation coming into the scene (hip-hop is diminishing; hence the switch to electro sound), it has exposed the substance abuse far beyond what we saw in the mid to late 90's. Evidence? Come on, when I'm at a friends BBQ and one of his younger friends tells me that everyone is rolling at Disneyland's Grad night, you know it gone to far. From Raves to Disneyland...man. |
Very well put. I know I went on a rant in my previous post, but thing that bothers me, past, present and future is, whenever something goes wrong, blame the entertainment industry. For once I would love to see a politician take the stand at a podium, and point the finger to the parents. I know this will never happen because it's not pc. But seriously it starts with good parenting skills. Look at all the teenagers today. They get away with almost everything, and when their kids get into the trouble, it's society's fault. Case in point. EDC. What happened to the 15 year old sucks, but how as a parent do you not know where your kid is or what they're doing? Did you not teach your kid right from wrong. Stop trying to be your kids friend, and practice tough love. Hell our parents did it to us. I for one, would never let my teenager go to a rave with their friends unless I'm going with. How hard is it for a parent to go and buy a ticket, or just say no.
Drugs are everywhere. It doesn't matter what the event is, or what genre of music it is, or how good your security staff is, they still get through. Only thing you can do is stop it when you see it and prevent it from happening as much as possible. Cancelling shows doesn't help in anyway. I feel the less activity the more trouble teens will want to get into. |
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