Raving lunacy

Another major nightclub to learn this difficult lesson was Twilo, in New York's Chelsea district, which in 1998 began a long and protracted battle against city authorities, which accused it of being a drugstore for kiddie ravers. (According to Sferios, Twilo was a perfect example of a "safe settings" nightclub -- it provided ample water, pumped cool air onto its dance floor and even provided a private ambulance in case of overdoses or other emergencies.) Unfortunately, city authorities cited that ambulance as proof that the club was a drug den. (According to the New York Times, the city also alleged that Fire Department officials who answered a 911 call were blocked from entering the club to treat three hidden patrons who had overdosed on drugs.) Although the city's first attempt to remove Twilo's cabaret license was initially rebuffed by an appeals court as being "arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable," that decision was ultimately overturned by the state's highest court; Twilo is now closed.

"Twilo was probably the safest place in Manhattan -- if something happened, within 30 seconds you would be in the hands of a licensed EMS technician and paramedic in a full-service ambulance," says Mike Bindra, executive producer of Twilo. "The city used that to demonize us.

"We were using the same service the New York Yankees use! Why is it a state law that an ambulance must be present at a football game, or at a Metallica concert at Madison Square Garden, but when it comes to dance culture and a nightclub you must be using it to smuggle drugs? It's like the Salem witch hunt."

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The list of clubs and promoters that have faced trouble with authorities goes on and on. In New York, the Tunnel and Limelight have been fighting similar battles with city authorities. Rave promoters in San Diego and Humboldt County, Calif., have had their permits yanked. In San Francisco, nightclub institutions like 1015 Folsom and the End Up have battled closure for years. And once the nightclubs shut down, new ones rarely open in their place: Many cities, including New York and San Francisco, have instituted moratoriums (official and unofficial) on any new cabaret licenses or late-night dance licenses. The net effect is a declining pool of legal venues for raves, parties, concerts and other dance events.

Some promoters still hope that if they can get the local authorities on their side, they will avoid federal scrutiny. "I don't think the [crack-house cases] are affecting me, or anyone else in Southern California, because the people I work with in law enforcement are stellar," says Philip Blaine, owner of KingFish entertainment in Los Angeles. "Here they have a concern for the public well-being -- they understand that kids will go out at night, and would rather have them going to a place that's planned and put together than go under a city bridge and put on a boombox where if they get hurt no one will find them until Monday, when their bodies are decaying."

In San Francisco, too, the community is effectively fighting back. In the late 1990s, many of the city's late-night dance clubs -- including Trocadero, Club DV8 and VSF -- lost their permits, thanks to drug and noise complaints and a zero-tolerance attitude on the part of local officials. In July 1999, a group of local party promoters organized the San Francisco Late Night Coalition, a political-action committee dedicated to keeping the city's night life alive. Thanks to extensive lobbying and outreach with both nightclub owners and local officials, the group has successfully saved many of the city's remaining dance venues.

These promoters and others say that the most naive hope of the federal crackdown on nightclubs is that if you remove the venue, you will remove the problem. Even if there are no official places to dance, wave glowsticks and hang out in chill rooms, that doesn't mean fans of electronic music won't continue to dance and do drugs. Instead, the electronic music scene will simply go underground for places to party. Nothing motivates a music subculture more than the potential to defy authority.

"If they shut down every rave and nightclub and place of public assembly in the country, nothing will happen except that the dangers of drug intake will go underground, and people who make bad choices will pay the ultimate price," says Lirot, who is battling the Club La Vela case. "Whereas in the alternate settings, smart people take precautions and deal with problems professionally and safely and in a medically secure fashion. Chasing things underground is never a good idea -- although society thinks they benefit in the short term, they will end up paying for it in the long term."

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