Pubdate: Sun, 27 Apr 2003
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2003 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Neva Chonin, Chronicle Pop Music Critic

CONGRESS ACTS OUT AGAINST CLUB CULTURE

Think only conservative religious sects outlaw dancing? Think again. 
Dancing, or at least clubs that offer dancing to electronic DJ music, could 
be in the fast lane to extinction thanks to an act of Congress. Last week 
it passed the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, also known as "the RAVE 
Act," as part of the larger PROTECT Act (a.k.a. the "Amber Alert" bill).

The RAVE Act strengthens existing "Operation of a Crackhouse" legislation, 
under which owners of a property are held responsible for any drug use on 
their premises. Penalties for violating the Crackhouse statute can include 
fines of up to $500,000 for an individual or $2 million for a corporation, 
a potential 20-year prison sentence and asset forfeiture.

When used against a real crack house, where individuals gather for the 
specific purpose of doing drugs, the law makes sense; when applied to music 
venues where a determined patron can always find a bathroom stall or dark 
corner to imbibe a chemical, it's lunacy.

In two landmark cases, New Orleans' State Palace Theatre, capacity 3,500, 
and Florida's Club La Vela, the largest nightclub in the country with a 
capacity of 6,000, were prosecuted under the Crackhouse law because, 
somewhere in their vast confines, it was charged, people using drugs.

It gets crazier. As evidence in the Club La Vela trial, prosecutors offered 
a picture from the club's Web site, depicting a man giving another man a 
massage, as proof of drug use -- because, they insisted, only drugs could 
incite such abnormal activity. In the Palace Theatre case, prosecutors 
cited bottled water and glow sticks as paraphernalia for use of the drug 
ecstasy.

The RAVE Act's strengthening of existing legislation and its expansion of 
what can be deemed a crack house could have a chilling, even killing, 
effect on club culture. As anyone who's gone to 1015 Folsom or other local 
dance nightspots lately can attest, an extensive search -- more thorough 
than an airport security check -- is now accepted procedure. What more can 
conscientious club owners do to protect themselves against the crack house 
crackdown? Not much, it seems.

"There's no clause having to do with due diligence, or counter measures you 
could take to mitigate liability or culpability," says Gary Blitz, National 
Coordinator for the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund (EM:DEF). 
"Yet a nightclub can only search people so much without violating their 
rights. The government can't even keep drugs out of the federal prison 
system, where they do cavity searches."

EM:DEF (emdef.org), the San Francisco Late Night Coalition (sflnc.org) and 
other dance activists want to convince Congress to add a safe harbor clause 
to the statute, exempting from prosecution those businesses taking 
precautions against potential patron drug use. The ACLU is on the case, but 
it's an uphill battle.

"We're trying to get everyone within the electronic dance community more 
involved and educated, " Blitz says. "So far youth dance culture hasn't 
been that political."

Word to club kids: Now would be a good time to start. Take your glow sticks 
in hand and fight for your right to party -- before the party's over.
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MAP posted-by: Beth