FANTINO BEHIND MEL'S ABOUT-FACE MAYOR CHANGED TUNE ON RAVES AFTER NEW CHIEF
APPOINTED

Mel Lastman has done such a sudden about-face on the subject of
city-sanctioned raves that it was a surprise to see him walking around City
Hall yesterday without benefit of a neck brace to cope with the severe
whiplash.

Nonetheless, the mayor will today introduce a motion calling on his council
colleagues to rescind the Protocol for the Operation of Safe Rave Events,
ending all municipal-sponsored raves.

This is a policy they passed by a unanimous 39-0 vote less than six months
ago. And it's worth mentioning that many councillors were moved to give the
protocol their blessing based almost entirely on an emotional speech that
Lastman made.

"I would rather have kids go to legalized raves that we can watch, ones we
can observe, than the underground ones where we don't know what's
happening," the mayor declared on Dec. 17.

Lastman was mightily impressed that rave organizers who rent Exhibition
Place with its good ventilation and ample running water would also have to
make drug and health counselling available so young revelers would know
what they were getting themselves into.

"The kids -- good kids -- are going to these places because they're looking
for a place to go," the mayor advised. "This is what we should be doing and
we should be having people there to supervise them, look after them.

"We know there will be police there -- whether they're undercover or
whatever -- but they will be there and they will be there to watch and they
will be there to make sure that the kids don't get into trouble," he said.
"I endorse that wholeheartedly.

"Look," Lastman continued, "I don't want to see kids get into trouble. I
don't want to see kids get killed. I don't want to see kids get hurt. I
don't want to see them get hit over the head with a bottle. I want to see
some adults there. I want to see some protection there and that's what this
does. So let's endorse it wholeheartedly -- not partially. I know this is
the right way to go."

But, last week, Lastman started reading from an altogether different script
on supervised raves.

"We can't control them," the mayor claimed. "You can't control the drugs,
you can't control what [people] do and you can't control how crazy people
get once they take the drugs.

"We're not looking to have people kill each other," Lastman added. "Thank
goodness they haven't."

So, what has happened to change the mayor's tune between December and now?
Nothing, really. Nothing other than the overly moralistic Julian Fantino
being appointed as Toronto's new chief of police. It would seem that all
Chief Julie has to do is whisper the words "law and order" into Lastman's
ear and His Melness will do a complete 180-degree turnaround on an issue.

The phenomenon certainly has Frances Nunziata scratching her head. The
councillor for York-Humber freaked out last October when Allen Ho, a
21-year-old Ryerson University student, died after taking a drug overdose
at an illegal rave held in an underground parkade in her west-end ward.
Nunziata demanded an immediate ban on the Ecstasy-fuelled dance parties and
called for police to come down hard on the people who organize them.

But, the councillor recalled yesterday, the mayor convinced her that a
total ban "would leave young people open to danger." He persuaded her to
become co-chair, with Councillor Olivia Chow, of the Toronto Rave Task
Force. It was this group -- with the co-operation of former police chief,
David Boothby -- that created the Safe Rave Protocol.

"Now it's him that wants to shut everything down," Nunziata said of Lastman
yesterday. "It wasn't the right thing to do last fall and it's certainly
not the right thing to do now."

She said that the mayor, at Fantino's urging, has abandoned the city's
young people. It's all part of a "cheap, short-sighted political manoeuvre"
timed to coincide with the inquest into Allan Ho's death, the councillor
charged.

"It makes a mockery of the task force process and council's support for the
dance safety protocol," Nunziata added. She said the inquest will only
underscore the need for rave safety.

A lot of Nunziata's colleagues agree. Chris Korwin-Kuczynski and David
Miller, councillors who represent the ward where Exhibition Place is
located, have both criticized Lastman's latest action for being something
less than thoughtful. Joe Pantalone, the councillor who chairs the board of
Exhibition Place, points out that although more than 100,000 young people
have attended raves there in the past three years, there hasn't been one
serious injury.

Yet Fantino would have the mayor believe it is sanctioned raves that are
the real problem.

"Illegal ones, he says, he can handle," Lastman said of the police chief
last week. "They've been very successful, up until now, closing them down."

Try telling that to the Ho inquest.