REIN IN 'RAVES'

The City Should Press Ahead With Regulations

A recent news report says: "The dance parties known as 'raves' are widely
considered notorious havens for illegal drugs like ecstasy, and now federal
prosecutors are coming after the hosts of such parties.

"An indictment in New Orleans against three men who organized a series of
rave parties there could signal a nationwide trend, federal prosecutors
said. The case appears to be a widening of the prosecutors' focus from
those who were dealing or doing club drugs to those who organize the
parties where they are popular.

"The rave organizers were indicted by a federal grand jury under the
federal 'crack house' law, which makes it a crime to make a building
available for the use of illegal drugs, in this case drugs like ecstasy and
LSD."

Rave parties - dances held in rented warehouses, empty buildings or clubs -
also have been an object of concern in Charlotte-Mecklenburg. They attract
teens and young adults, usually by word of mouth, fliers or the Internet.
Often they go on until dawn.

And because they don't serve alcohol, rave parties are essentially
unregulated. Older patrons mix with people who are children by any
reasonable definition. Police and paramedics say that raves often are a
scene of heavy drug activity and related problems, including predatory sex
crimes.

The City Council's public safety committee is considering an ordinance to
regulate hours, attendance and other particulars of rave events. The
committee is proceeding carefully, in response to complaints from club
owners and patrons that over-regulation would punish the many for the
excesses of a few.

Fairness is in order, of course, but so is dispatch. There is no good
reason for big, commercial dances to go on until dawn without any real
regulation or oversight.

We hope the committee and the full City Council will remember the words of
one Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer who said, "If we don't do
something soon, somebody is going to die at one of these things."

Federal authorities consider this to be very serious business, and local
leaders should, too.