HARVEY POLICE SHUT DOWN RAVE

HARVEY -- The Harvey Police Department made it clear they are fed up with
raves.

The city is threatening to pull a local business's license after learning
the owner planned to host an illegal rave party for as many as 2,000 youths
Saturday night, in a city which officials concede has more than its share
of image problems.

Shortly before 7 p.m. Saturday, several Harvey police officers barricaded
the entrance to Club O, 17034 Halsted St., where an illegal rave party,
billed as the Midwest Summer Dance Festival, was to take place, officials
said. Armed with a recently approved ordinance banning such events, the
police spent the evening turning away more than 80 cars filled with
would-be ravers. In one case, a chartered bus bound for the event also was
turned away.

Officers made scattered arrests and seized small quantities of marijuana, a
few Ecstasy pills and several open containers of alcohol, police said. Two
of the possession-related arrests included two people from Plymouth and
Walkerton, Ind.

"We made it pretty clear in our ordinance that this wasn't going to
happen," said Harvey police Cmdr. Mike Landini. "I don't think they'll want
to come down here and try it again. They can go ... where they like to have
these parties, but they are never coming here again."

The city of Harvey has had a long history of problems with violence, drugs
and crime, said city spokesman Bob Storman. He said many equate Harvey with
Calumet City's former "Sin City" reputation. He added that Harvey has a
right to maintain civil order and protection its citizens.

"If someone got hurt at one of these things, it would be a black eye that
this city, which has enough problems, doesn't need," Storman said. "Mayor
Graves is trying to clean up this city, and the city has an absolute right
to pull the license of a business that doesn't abide by the rules.

Storman said police learned of the party after one officer, who was surfing
the Internet, saw an advertisement selling $30 tickets to a rave at the
club. On Sept. 25, the Harvey City Council passed an ordinance disallowing
rave parties in Harvey. The ordinance also banned police from working as
private security officers at both rave parties and gentlemen's clubs in the
city.

While most of the partygoers surprised by the police presence declined to
comment on the barricade, one girl, who identified herself only as Melissa,
expressed her displeasure at being turned away.

"All we wanted to do was have a party," she said. "If I wanted to dance and
take drugs, I could have stayed at home."

A young man who identified himself as Thomas Kahill passed out fliers with
directions to the party's new location -- more than two hours away in
Rockford, Ill.

When asked what the difference was between a rave and an "all-night dance
party," as the event was billed, Kahill said "Basically, just the wording.
The word rave party has a lot of bad connotations to it. It's really no
different than a rock concert. You bring in musicians, and they play. More
people probably get drunk and kill more people driving home from a Grateful
Dead or Metallica concert."

The flier contained a message to partygoers from Nick Teague, listed as the
organizer of the rave, who cited the city's ordinance as the reason for the
move.

"Due to circumstances beyond our control we were forced to move, bugged-out
to a different venue," Teague wrote. "The City of Harvey made an anti-rave
law to stop us from doing our event at the Harvey Expo Center ... after
trying to fight the ordinance, we realized, that moving the event to a new
location would be the best solution."

Storman said tickets for the party were being sold at $30 a piece and would
have likely generated as much as $100,000 in business. He said not only
have rave parties been nationally recognized as a forum for illegal drugs
and illicit activities, but the local ordinance makes the parties illegal
in Harvey.

"This is big business for the people who rent out their buildings to hold
these parties and the people who organize them," Storman said. "They don't
care what happens to these kids or the people of our community, as long as
they get paid."

The Harvey City Council plans to discuss the issue at Monday night's
council meeting, Storman said. He added that the issue of Club O hosting a
Rave party after the city declared it illegal would be brought up, and the
city may take measures to pull the business's license.