PARTY PATROL

Every summer, thousands of New Yorkers descend upon Central Park's Rumsey
Playfield for the highly anticipated SummerStage concert series.

Families stretch out in the cool grass lining the field's perimeter, while
closer to the stage, a motley mix of club kids, hip-hop heads, and soccer
moms feverishly dance. In the past, the eclectic programming has featured
everything from old-school rappers Biz Markie and Doug E. Fresh to
house-music outfit Basement Jaxx. To combat the sweltering heat,
concertgoers cool off with overpriced bottles of water, and behind the
stage, an ambulance stands by. But this year, dance community activists
fear that concerts like those at SummerStage could be jeopardized. Equipped
with a loosely worded law making venue owners and concert promoters
responsible for their patrons' partying ways, overzealous prosecutors could
target mainstream event organizers with stiff fines, jail sentences (up to
20 years), and property seizures.

Two weeks ago, the House and Senate quietly passed the Illicit Drug
Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003--legislation aimed at quelling club drugs
like Ecstasy and GHB. Ushered through with little fanfare, the act was
piggybacked onto the AMBER Alert Bill, a package of child-safety laws with
overwhelming congressional support.

President Bush has promised to sign it into law in the upcoming weeks.

But despite serious grassroots opposition spearheaded by organizations like
the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund, the bill passed without a
Senate hearing. "It was backdoor legislation at its worst," says William
McColl, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, a group
that lobbies for drug decriminalization.

The act expands upon the so-called "crack house" statute--an '80s law
allowing prosecutors to go after the owners of "crack houses," even if
they're neither dealers nor users.

In 2001, the DEA broke ground by aiming the crack house statute at a new
target--the owners and promoters of a concert venue, the State Palace
Theater in New Orleans. A teenage drug overdose spurred the investigation,
and the defendants were indicted for "knowingly and intentionally" allowing
drug use to take place; evidence included overpriced bottles of water ($3;
the same price at which the nearby Superdome sells them), chill-out rooms,
and on-site ambulances. A plea agreement was reached--fining the business
$100,000--and surgical masks, glow sticks, and pacifiers were banned from
the club. A year later, a federal judge overturned the ban on the grounds
that it violated First Amendment rights.

The DEA has had mixed results prosecuting promoters using the crack house
statute.

The new incarnation requires a lower burden of proof by making business
owners not only criminally but civilly liable for the acts of their patrons.

It also applies to outdoor, as well as one-night-only, events. "It gives
prosecutors a bigger hammer," says Marv Johnson, legislative counsel for
the American Civil Liberties Union. "Even if they can't prove without a
reasonable doubt, they can still go after you civilly and take away your
profits, your property."

The brain behind the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act is Senator Joseph
Biden, a longtime drug warrior who also helped create the crack house
statute and the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the 1980s. The
Delaware Democrat first introduced his legislation last year, when it was
known as the RAVE (Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy) Act, and
argued that the sale of expensive bottled water or glow sticks at an
electronic-music event was evidence of Ecstasy use. It was met with a
flurry of faxes protesting the act, spurring two of the bill's co-sponsors,
senators Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin, to drop their support.

The new version also drops the rave act. "It's venue neutral," says
Margaret Aitken, Biden's press secretary. "That's why we changed the name."

The renamed Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act no longer contains such
inflammatory "indicators" of Ecstasy use (like glow sticks), but concerns
over constitutional violations remain. "Business owners have come to
Congress and told us there are only so many steps they can take to prevent
any of the thousands of people who may attend a concert or a rave from
using drugs, and they are worried about being held personally accountable
for the illegal acts of others," wrote Senator Leahy in a statement he
issued shortly after the Senate unanimously passed the AMBER Alert bill.

Just what constitutes "knowingly and intentionally" has also been something
of an enigma to local businesses. Several Manhattan club owners seek
assistance from Forensic Investigative Associates--a private company run by
Bob Silbering, a former federal prosecutor who helped shut down the
Limelight in 1994. Silbering is hired by everyone from the courts to the
police to the clubs to evaluate a venue's security practices.

He recommends that clubs search patrons, put up anti-drug signs, use
cameras, and employ a sufficient number of trained security people. "You
can't keep drugs totally out," says Silbering. "But you can take measures."

Anybody who's been to a concert, festival, or club in the last 50 years
knows people do drugs, whether it is an acid tab ingested at a rock show, a
line of cocaine inhaled in a discotheque, or more recently, a hit of
Ecstasy taken at a superclub.

It is because of this pervasive use that many fear the new law could
curtail all kinds of concerts--not just raves.

Like the State Palace Theater in New Orleans, the wildly popular
SummerStage series often hosts DJ dance parties; trained medical staff are
on hand and pricey bottled water is sold. Now that the law applies to
outdoor and one-night-only events, it could be argued that the promoters of
these shows "knowingly and intentionally" allow drug use.

Aitken says that's not the intent: "There's a lot of misconception that the
law imposes criminal liability on business owners.

This is not about incidental drug use."

But many of the club owners and promoters the Voice spoke with were wary
about being interviewed. Third Floor Media, the PR agency for SummerStage,
declined to participate in this story, as did Radio City Entertainment, the
firm that organizes concerts at Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music
Hall. After a week of legal vetting, Clear Channel--the entertainment
conglomerate responsible for blockbuster tours like the annual
Ozzfest--finally released a statement packed with legalese in support of
the law, saying it's "positive legislation," written "in a manner that will
prevent the facility managers and owners from being prosecuted if a patron
breaks the law on their premises without management awareness."

A major concern, however, is whether the law is going to be abused. "The
bottom line is if the federal government wants to get you, they will," says
longtime NYC promoter Matt E. Silver. "This is just another tool to use
against you." This sentiment is echoed by John Feinblatt, the city's
criminal justice coordinator, who also says the law's one-night-only
provision gives police a new "tool" to go after unscrupulous operators.
"The state has certainly had laws that enabled us to go against
irresponsible club owners," says Feinblatt. "But promoters have been able
to hide in the shadows."

One prominent dance-music promoter, Chris Kausch of Stuck on Earth
Productions, has thrown raves featuring big-name DJs like Carl Cox and
Richie Hawtin at city landmarks like Randalls Island and South Street
Seaport. Events like his are probably what Biden had in mind when he first
drafted this legislation. But Kausch is a legitimate promoter who works
closely with city agencies: The parks department has even offered him
letters of recommendation. Kausch, who was hesitant to talk to the Voice,
says he's unsure about his business's future. "We're thinking about
shutting down the company," says Kausch, who also runs a music label and
marketing firm. "It's a headache."

In New York, where anti-dancing cabaret laws are enforced and cigarette
smoking has been banned, the new federal law is proving to be just one more
bureaucratic nightmare. "First tobacco is our fault.

Now drug addiction is our fault?" questions Centro-Fly co-owner Tom Sisk.
David Rabin, the outspoken president of the New York Nightlife Association,
agrees: "It is very dangerous when legislation is passed by people who are
clueless about nightlife and go to bed before midnight."

Witness the feds' evidence of acknowledged drug use: expensive bottled
water and on-site ambulances. The high price for H20 is meant to be
prohibitive: "The reason water is expensive is because we don't want to
sell water," says Sisk.

Some wonder whether the feds' policy will do more harm for clubgoers,
particularly in summer months: "People's safety should come first," says
Kenny Smith, co-owner of Crobar, a Chicago- and Miami-based megaclub chain
that's opening a location in Chelsea this fall.

Perhaps New York could take a cue from Miami, where nightlife is a big
tourist draw. In South Beach clubs, it isn't uncommon to see fire marshals
roaming dancefloors. Smith employs several emergency-trained staff members,
and his club plans on taking tough security measures to combat drug use.
"We just hope you have a great experience after we've searched your every
purse and cavity," he cracks.

Civil-liberty advocates are concerned that invasive searches at concert
venues may be just the beginning and that certain kinds of music events
will be singled out. They believe alternative subcultures--repetitive-beat
freaks, jam-band junkies, hip-hop heads, gay circuit boys--are most
vulnerable. "The government can essentially shut down any genre of music
they don't like," says the ACLU's Marv Johnson.

Or shut down any event whose patrons they don't like. "Say the city feels a
hip-hop concert is in the wrong place; [they] could use it heavy-handedly,"
says Crobar's Smith. "That's the scary part."