ON COW PALACE RAVES: THE PARTY'S OVER

After a string of drug overdoses this year, the Cow Palace in Daly
City has announced that it will stop hosting electronic music parties
"for the foreseeable future," in the words of Cow Palace chief
executive Joe Barkett.

Barkett said that he went to the board of directors and told them that
"even with everything we've done (to enhance security), I don't think
there's anything more we can do to prevent these things from
happening." The board voted unanimously to stop hosting the events.

That's good news for the Cow Palace - these tragedies were negatively
impacting its reputation. And it speaks to the deep concerns within
the industry about these parties. "I talk to a lot of my peers and
they're all agonizing over this in different ways," Barkett said.

The question is, as more and more facilities ban or restrict the
parties, what will happen to those who attend them? Will driving the
parties underground make a public safety problem even worse?

It may. The parties won't stop, they'll just shift to more rural areas
and less reputable facilities. It's much harder to have a heavy police
presence and emergency medical access in these places.

There are few easy answers, even for party promoters - even those who
work hard to have safety and security inside the party can be thwarted
by attendees doing drugs in the parking lot. That's what happened at
events at the Cow Palace.

Any true solution to this problem is going to involve increased
education, better parenting and more societal responsibility. But for
now, the Cow Palace is right to say no to events that it can't
control. Now if only party-goers would say no to drugs that they can't
control, we'd all be a lot safer.