CITY SET TO SLAM DOOR ON RAVES

Surrey's planned ban on rave parties will result in unsanctioned events
that are more likely to see kids hurt, according to rave organizer Salim
Lakhani.

Raves are popular all-night dance parties, which typically involve youth,
technomusic and Ecstasy. Typically in pill form, Ecstasy is mostly
methylene-dioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and methamphetamine and has both
stimulant and hallucinogenic effects.

Because of the association with the youth and drugs, and the city's lack of
manpower to police the large parties, Surrey's public safety committee
wants an end to the events.

Lakhani maintains the parties will continue whether the city sanctions them
or not.

"They'll have them," Lakhani said Friday, "they're just more dangerous."

City sanctioned events are more likely to be adequately policed, he maintains.

However, Surrey RCMP superintendent Al MacIntyre says raves, and the drugs
that go with them, have no business in this city.

"My position is that we know at raves the drugs are consumed in great
quantities," says MacIntyre. "I don't support having raves in this city."

While working with the Richmond RCMP, MacIntyre found the raves to be a
tremendous draw on precious police resources.

"There we saw many other issues," MacIntyre says, including tired kids
driving their cars into ditches, overdoses and noise complaints.

Surrey doesn't have many raves, MacIntyre says.

And from a policing perspective, "this community doesn't want them."