RAVING MAD

Rants About T.O. Raves Are Reaching A Crescendo

People are raging about raves.

First came police concern over growing drug use at the all-night
parties.

Then came neighbourhood anger at the thunderous racket.

Then came the politicians.

Last weekend, it was the Beaches neighbourhood that noticed Freakin',
the big Halloween rave at the Docks. In fact, residents couldn't help
but notice.

The high-decibel beat went on -- at 140 beats per minute -- all night
long and resulted in hundreds of angry calls to police and
politicians.

One of those politicians, Councillor Tom Jakobek, was himself awakened
by the noise at his home several kilometres away and is now pushing
for a crackdown on the dance parties. He's also demanding the city
cancel the permit for a huge New Year's Eve rave at Exhibition Place.

Police later explained they were reluctant to pull the plug on the
Docks party because the estimated 15,000 young people -- many using
drugs -- might have been hard to manage if the music had suddenly stopped.

What a perfect opening for politicians bent on bringing order to the
rave scene! There'd been three deaths since July and they were worried
about these marathon dance parties where kids, some as young as 14,
dance all night long, often with a chemical assist from a designer
drug like Ecstasy or Crystal Meth.

The crackdown rumblings had already started months ago in the
major-drugs section at police headquarters. Designer drugs heading for
the rave markets were becoming big business. The word had filtered up
from undercover street cops that this scene was much bigger than
anyone imagined.

About nine months ago, Det.-Sgt. David Brownell of major drugs got
funding to set up a clandestine-labs division right alongside the
heroin and cocaine outfits. The purpose was to target the labs where
the drugs were made, since Brownell and his men believed the
traffickers were "stepping up" to become the manufacturers as well as
the distributors.

Two months ago they arrested a ring run by a former kingpin in the
cocaine trade. Among the drugs and money confiscated were presses or
stamps used to put the identifying imprints on the little capsules.
Tiny imprints of a butterfly, a turtle -- even a Canadian flag -- are
commonly used as brand logos to suggest the capsules are safe and benign.

"We have conclusive evidence that it (Ecstasy) is being manufactured
here," Brownell told The Sunday Sun.

Brownell's group looks at the problem of drug trafficking from the
business side. They go after those who organize the importation or
manufacture of drugs. They see the million-dollar houses and expensive
imported cars, the perqs of the trade.

At the apex of the business, the criminals "look just like us, with
suits and cellphones," says Brownell. "Chasing them is an elaborate
game of strategy that doesn't often concentrate on drug tragedies."

But this summer it was impossible to escape the connection between
designer drugs and tragedy. Three young men died in drug incidents at
raves. Not much is known about the young man who died in the parking
lot of The Guvernment, a popular dance club. But the two others were
both promising university students nearing the end of their
educations. Neither was known to be an habitue of the rave scene and
both may have been victims of their own inexperience with designer
drugs.

These deaths have reverberated with the public. Here was a danger they
didn't know existed and one that had suddenly landed very close to
home. The police decided something should be done before there was
more trouble.

Three weeks ago, Brownell's boss, Supt. Ron Taverner, went to see
Consumer Minister Bob Runciman. "I hadn't thought or heard much about
raves," Runciman told The Sunday Sun, "but it was clear the police
were worried about the very, very large ones. Taverner told me it was
difficult for the police to cope with crowds of that size, especially
when they are rife with the sales and use of illegal drugs."

In the week leading up to Halloween, Runciman made some oblique
rumblings about taking a look at raves. There's speculation that
Runciman's comments touched a nerve at the Toronto Congress Centre,
which had been rented months before for the biggest rave of the year,
the Halloween bash, Freakin'.

Rob Lisi, co-owner of Lifeforce Industries, promoter of the event,
won't comment but for some reason the Congress Centre got cold feet
and demanded the party be limited to 10,000. Thirteen thousand tickets
had already been sold (at $25 a head).

So three days before the event, Lifeforce was without a location. It
switched to the parking lots south of the Docks and worked "14-hour
days" says Lisi, putting up tents, getting the ventilator fans, oiling
the gravel and arranging more paid-duty cops to manage the traffic on
Lakeshore Blvd.

It was a very difficult week for Lisi, 24. He and his partner had
hundreds of thousands of dollars invested, had already paid expenses
and advances to the more than a dozen DJs who were scheduled to mix
music for the event. In honour of the special night they'd even booked
a hip-hop group to broaden the range of the usual techno/house and
drum and bass music.

But, finally, when the cool windy night arrived they were ready.
Police were everywhere and everyone lining up to get in was patted
down and asked to open purses and bags. The event was advertised to
last from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m., but at midnight thousands of kids were
still streaming into the four tents -- three each with a different
type of music and a fourth where glow sticks, condoms and beads were
available for sale.

On stage in the first tent, the big-name hip-hop group Public Enemy
had unexpectedly joined E.P.M.D. for a little freestyle rap. This had
the makings of a night to remember.

By 2 a.m. the scene was typical rave. In some places, kids were in
lines 10 deep around the sides of the tents in piles that reminded you
of litters of kittens. Many sucked on baby pacifiers. Others danced by
themselves in the kind of jerky marionette movements that Pearl Isaac,
a pharmacist and addiction counsellor with the Addiction and Mental
Health Centre, says go along with the use of amphetamine-like drugs
like Ecstasy.

But there was no hostility, no aggression, just a lot of hugging,
rocking and yes, some "bruxism" (the word the doctors use for grinding
your teeth. This and the stiff jaws Ecstasy users report having the
next day explain why pacifiers and Popsicles have become the emblem du
jour of raves).

The most dangerous moment in the nearly five hours I spent there came
when the scaffolding under one of the speakers collapsed under the
weight of some dancers. The speaker was suspended by wires but a piece
of the scaffolding hit a couple who were sitting against it. Police
and ambulance attendants converged and they were whisked away. The man
was treated with extreme care and rolled onto a board as if he had a
spinal-cord injury. However, by yesterday Lisi had heard nothing about
his condition or the extent of his injuries.

Derek McNaughton, 24, has been a devotee of the rave scene for years,
but now he's started to mix music and hopes to make a career in the
field. He remembers his days of partying vividly and fondly. He's a
strong-looking, muscular young man and knows the dangers that can be
present in certain drinking establishments.

"I always felt safe at raves. I didn't have to worry about an
alcohol-crazed testosterone nutcase taking a swing at me."

"With all these people we won't have one fight," one organizer told
me. "Where else would that happen? The ambience is wonderful."

Even for me, a lone, drug-free interloper prowling the party disguised
in a rubber horror mask, there was gentle acceptance. At least 20
people caught my arm or just my eye and gave me the thumbs-up sign
approving of my costume. Others tried to tell me things but my ears
weren't up to the challenge of distinguishing words above the music.
Music so powerful, incidentally, I could feel my chest cavity
vibrating. I've listened without comprehension to the techno music
favoured by my 18-year-old son, but in this space, with these people,
you could begin to glimpse its appeal. One raver told me that when he
first walked into a rave it was as if everyone was speaking Japanese,
but 12 hours and a cap of Ecstasy later he had learned the language
and he never again returned to his rock 'n' roll roots.

Yes, there were obvious signs of drug use. "Absolutely rampant" is the
description the police used. Some ravers were nauseous, some trembled,
some in the kitten piles were clearly zoned out and grinding their
teeth. The undercover police made six drug-related arrests. As for the
uniformed paid-duty cops -- 34 of them altogether --they had a fairly
calm time of it.

According to Lisi and another promoter, who didn't want his name used,
the duty cops will arrest people if they see any blatant illegal
activity. Their presence is obviously meant as a deterrent. But you
have to wonder what mixed messages the kids get seeing uniformed
police at a rave where the effects of drug use are obvious even if no
one is popping pills in public.

Between the tents, with a light rain falling and the wind howling,
people stood in lines 50 or 60 deep to buy water at $3 a bottle.
Sometimes a pair would plunk down $30 and scoop up 10 bottles.

This, according to organizers, is the most lucrative business at a
rave. The combination of designer drugs and frenetic dancing makes
ravers deeply thirsty. It's also dangerous not to drink frequently
because the drugs interfere with the body's natural thermostat and
it's easy for body temperature to spike up.

So ample water supplies are a health issue as well as business issue.
But at raves, organizers claim landlords often retain the right to
sell water. And even at the city-owned Exhibition Place sites, the
water concession is fiercely negotiated with the company that holds
the concession contract.

Sometimes the landlord even turns off the tap water so ravers are
forced to buy the expensive bottled water. "It's a health issue," one
rave organizer told me. "These kids go to the washroom and fill up
their bottle from the toilet. Not the bowl, but where it comes in."

That was not an issue at Freakin'. There was no running water, only
hundreds of Portolets.

It wasn't obvious as the night wore on, but the promoters were under
fire big-time. The regulars would have noticed, of course, that what
was advertised as "insane wattage" wasn't quite as insane any more.
The Beaches was vibrating to a muffled techno that prevented many from
sleeping. The police came back three times asking that the music be
turned down, Lisi says, and each time it was.

"I made a mistake," Lisi admits. "The closest residents were on the
Toronto Island and I figured if we faced the speakers east we wouldn't
wake them up. But it was a clear night and the sound carried far
farther than we expected. I take full ownership for a bad decision. I
made a public apology but it wasn't accepted."

One of the people awakened was Councillor Jakobek's wife. The
telephone also started to ring. It also rang in Councillor Sandra
Bussin's home with irate voters demanding something be done.

The party ended at 6 a.m., three hours ahead of schedule, "because it
started to rain," Lisi told The Sunday Sun.

On Monday morning, the city was shocked to learn the police felt they
didn't have power to do much more than they did to shut down the rave.

"They purposely don't serve liquor so it won't affect their liquor
licence and hence their operating licence," said Insp. Randall Munroe
when the police were criticized.

By Wednesday, the political fallout was beginning to take shape.
Runciman had announced "a summit" of police, fire and health
authorities to develop a strategy to crackdown on raves.

By Friday, when he talked to The Sunday Sun he had expanded his focus
to include bars and other licensed establishments where drugs might be
sold and organized crime involved. He'd also adjusted the timetable.
The summit wouldn't be convened until next month and possibly not
until the new year.

That will not be good enough for Jakobek who sounded angrier on Friday
than he had earlier. "Those raves are notorious for dozens of our kids
being hauled off to hospital," he said. He had written a letter to
Councillor Joe Pantalone, chairman of Exhibition Place, demanding the
rave scheduled for New Year's Eve and promoted by Lisi's Lifeforce
Industries be cancelled.

Lisi was upset by the attack. "Obviously there are some raves that
need to be shut down," he said. "But our events are safe. It's only us
doing large events over 10,000. They're going after the responsible
promoter. All closing us down is going to do is drive ravers
underground where it isn't safe. Safety is not being considered. I
think some people are being vengeful in this situation."

No deaths have occurred at the large events Lisi has organized,
although he admits kids are taken to hospital with drug problems.
That's going to happen in any situation like this. I do whatever I can
to restrict drug use."

He says the New Year's event will cost $500,000 and they've already
spent $150,000 of that.

"It's the millennium, there's going to be revelry," says Tony, a
promoter who asked that his last name not be used. "We're adults. We
should not have our heads in the sand. There are drugs in Toronto.
I've been offered cocaine in the bathroom at a Jays game."