BAN ON RAVES COULD LIMIT YOUTH OPTIONS

Dane County officials should not be too quick to pull the plug on raves at
the county-owned Alliant Center. After all, kids are people, too.

"Raves" is the new term for parties where young people gather in enormous
herds, listen to thunderous, ear-splitting music, dance until they drop and
stay out far later than they ought to.

The name may be new, but nothing else is. Kids have been behaving that
way for generations.

Raves began as underground parties, sometimes held in abandoned warehouses
or barns. A couple of years ago, promoters started booking raves at
respectable venues like the Alliant Center and the Barrymore Theater. They
charge admission, but they also offer a degree of safety the early raves
lacked.

Consider a recent rave at the Alliant Center: More than 7,000 people
attended. They were searched for drugs and alcohol at the door. No
alcoholic beverages were served inside. Medical personnel were on standby
the entire evening, because ravers have been known to collapse from
exhaustion and dehydration.

It's true some ravers use drugs. It's tragic that a West High School
student died of a drug overdose after a rave in September. But it's
probably equally true -- and equally tragic -- that a lot more drug and
alcohol abuse occurs in settings far less supervised than organized raves.
At the recent Alliant Center rave, 27 ravers were arrested on drug charges
- -- a tiny percentage, given the size of the crowd.

It's also true that there aren't a lot of places where young people can do
what young people do: Get together and listen to loud, obnoxious music and
dance in ways that would horrify their parents (just as their parents did a
generation ago). Many parents, police and other experts believe it is
better for young people to party in supervised situations such as bars or
commercial raves than at private parties or underground raves.

Rave promoters are working hard to eliminate drug and alcohol use at their
events, because they want to avoid bans such as the one imposed at the
Alliant Center. They cooperate with police, invite input from drug
counseling groups, and aggressively tell ravers about their zero-tolerance
policies.

Officials should wait until Jan. 2 to decide whether to make the Alliant
Center's ban on raves permanent. That's the day after a New Year's Eve
"Second Coming" rave, which was booked before the ban was announced. If the
"Second Coming" comes off without a hitch (or with only minor glitches),
the ban should be lifted.

Kids will be kids -- and eventually, they become taxpayers, too.