HUGE 'RAVE PARTY' IN OLD BRIDGE ENDS WITH ARRESTS AND REGRETS

Billed as a 12-hour weekend dance party with 30 deejays from up and down
the East Coast at a sprawling Old Bridge entertainment complex, it was
supposed to be for people "exploring their minds, bodies and the natural
human rhythm to dance."

Law enforcement officials from the state and Middlesex County saw it as a
massive "rave party" where illegal hallucinogenic drugs, such as Ecstasy,
would be sold and used by the denizens of dance floors pulsating with the
sounds of nonstop techno music.

Five law enforcement agencies arrested 33 people, including about eight
juveniles, on drug possession and underage drinking charges at an event
that partygoers described as another in a series of poorly produced shows
in New Jersey.

A task force of officers, some undercover, infiltrated the 12-hour event
that ran from 3 p.m. Saturday to 3 p.m. Sunday. Others set up a command
post in a nearby parking lot on Route 9 to coordinate surveillance of the
party at the Birch Hill entertainment complex and to monitor arrests.

In all, police say nearly 5,000 attended the rave, many from out of state.
Of those arrested for possession and sale of the designer drugs Ecstasy and
Special K, most were from other states, including Pennsylvania, New York,
Massachusetts, and one teenager from Virginia.

The event left Birch Hill owner Arthur Stock asserting he never expected
this kind of event and would never host another one again.

The man who organized the event, party promoter Jim Florio, head of
Belmar-based One Productions company, also declared this to be his last
such concert. "Never again, never again," said Florio, 23, who previously
sponsored controversial rave parties in Morris and Asbury Park.

Rave dance parties commonly run from dusk to dawn and draw energy from
frenzied music, psychedelic lights and a dance floor packed with young
bodies grinding to the beat. The phenomenon has steadily spread from cities
to the suburbs, bringing illicit drug use with it.

Florio said he tried to provide an alternative, with an event starting
during the day.

Capt. Jeffrey Greczyn, head of the Middlesex County Prosecutor's narcotics
task force, said while the Old Bridge party was not promoted as a rave,
"that's the way we looked at it." He said the party name Eden, with an "E,"
suggested availability of Ecstasy to the designer drug nightclub crowd.

The price, Greczyn said, was $40 per pill and $20 per half pill. Police let
some time lapse before officers arrested sellers, so they would not know
which of their customers were police working undercover.

Old Bridge police, alerted by State Police and the state Division of
Alcoholic Beverage Control, asked Stock to cancel the event more than a
week ago, but he said the club was under contract to rent the facility.

"I said, what can I do to keep my liability down? I told (police) if they
think there's a lot of drug activity to just shut it down," Stock said.

Old Bridge police Capt. William Cerra said Stock and his staff cooperated
with police. Staff members reported drug activity if they saw it. Cerra
said most of the people attended the event without incident.

People at the party, however, complained of stiff security and youths
breaking rules to purchase alcohol.

Before entering with their tickets, which cost up to $35, partygoers were
searched. They removed their shoes, emptied their pockets and opened
backpacks for inspections. Bottled water was not allowed. Neither were
candy treats like lollipops - often used at raves by partygoers on Ecstasy,
which triggers a craving for something to suck on.

Inside, deejays at turntables spinning different genres of techno-music
drew scores of mostly high school-age and college-age youths to the floor.
Marijuana was impossible to "score," but Ecstasy was available and paper
tabs of acid were easy to find, according to partygoers.

Some underage people managed to bypass the wristband rule and drink
alcohol, some said. Others said security at the bar was tight. One Dover
youth recalled watching security remove two minors for trying to trick a
bartender.

"Drugs were sold but it was not as bad as most other parties," said Walter
Rodriguez, a 19-year-old patron from Dover who arrived at the venue at 7
p.m. with three friends and waited in a line with 400 to 500 other people
for an hour before getting in. He noted paper tabs of acid were easy to
find, though he said he does not do drugs.

Sam Cha, 20, of Burlington City, said he avoided the massive line extending
a few blocks from the entrance and snuck in to the show. He saw many of the
same sights.

People outside danced on a wooden deck, played basketball and volleyball,
and sunbathed around a large pool that offered temporary relief from the
humidity for the sweaty dance fans.

But as time passed, the deck's support beams cracked and the deck was off
limits. The pool and a nearby hot tub, where couples did more than embrace,
was no place for anyone in their right mind, said Cha.

"It was disgusting by the end of the night," he said of the pool's water
quality. "It was nasty." Cha said he also watched two groups of guys "run"
or rob people on two occasions.

Yesterday, the deck around the main pool at the club was strewn with empty
plastic water bottles, paper plates, plastic cups, discarded socks and
partly filled beer bottles, along with tiny, clear plastic bags apparently
discarded drug containers that remained as evidence of what went on.

"Just look around," one woman said yesterday as she stood on the deck and
pointed to the plastic bags. The woman, who declined to give her name, had
returned with a friend to look for keys she lost during the event.

Late yesterday, police were still putting together a list of those charged
and had not yet compiled detailed reports on the arrests. Some partygoers
were still being held in the Middlesex County jail.

Staff writers Karen Ayers and Jim O'Neill contributed to this report.