KILLING S.F.'S NIGHTLIFE

SAN FRANCISCO'S OFFICIAL war against nightlife has escalated to the point
of near insanity with a May 31 settlement of the city's case against the
popular dance club Ten 15 Folsom. As Amanda Nowinski reports on page 11,
the settlement, which stems from a long-standing city lawsuit against the
club, includes some astounding provisions: every patron entering the club
must be searched, and anyone carrying even tiny amounts of drugs must be
turned over to the police. The club must install video surveillance cameras
to cover every square inch of public space inside. Bathrooms must be
patrolled regularly by uniformed guards.

Even airports, which worry about real threats like bombings and hijackings,
don't require such embarrassing violations of personal privacy.

If the goal of the city was to shut down Ten 15, this settlement may well
accomplish it. It's hard to imagine how dance-club fans are going to
continue to patronize a place that is forced to treat every customer as a
criminal.

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of all of this is that the "problems"
at Ten 15 were relatively minor to begin with and certainly nothing that
required the wholesale suspension of the Fourth Amendment. As we reported
last August (see "The War on Fun," 8/25/99), many of the incidents that the
San Francisco Police Department has used to support its case against Ten 15
took place outside the club, some of them several blocks away. The club has
spent a fortune on security, on soundproofing, and on community relations
work. But let's face it: Ten 15 is a dance club, and some of the people who
go to dance clubs are going to smoke pot and take ecstasy.

Sups. Mark Leno and Tom Ammiano have called for a hearing on the matter,
and Leno is suggesting that the city create an Entertainment Commission
(which could, among other things, take authority for regulating nightclubs
away from the police). That's a good start. But the supervisors should also
be demanding that the Police Department and the City Attorney's Office
explain what they could possibly have found to be a threat to the public so
serious that it required this sort of sledgehammer assault on the civil
liberties of people who happen to like dancing late at night.