Time for Team Tulisa

So Prime Minister David Cameron sticks his nose into a current court case and proclaims his support for Nigella Lawson - well of course she is the daughter of a former Tory minister. Judging by twitter and facebook he's not the only one - my timelines are full of people proclaiming their allegiance to #TeamNigella. I've got nothing against that, but I would like to see a bit more solidarity with #TeamTulisa.

The difference between the support given to Nigella vs. Tulisa says a lot about the different ways drugs are regarded according to class. Nigella has admitted taking cocaine, and has been accused by witnesses in court of doing so regularly. Does anyone imagine she is going to be arrested and questioned about this? No, a bit of Class A drug use is OK for upper class celebrities.

But what about ex-N-Dubz singer Tulisa Contostavlos? She has been charged with being involved with the supply of Class A Drugs followed an operation by The Scum newspaper. Their story claimed that she had merely introduced their reporter to a dealer after the former said he was trying to score some coke. No indulgence for her though - a working class London Irish/Cypriot woman is seen as being practically a gangster if she is accused of going anywhere near drugs. And of course a woman from her background who dares to have a 'female boss' tattoo is considered fair game to be denounced as a 'chav' and cut down to size.

Police raid at Royal Holloway College

It's the start of a new term in British student life, and yes no doubt at the end of Freshers Week some students are going out dancing, having a lot to drink and maybe something a little stronger.

But at the Royal Holloway Students Union in Surrey the local police obviously thought this was a big crime fighting priority. According to Workers Liberty:

 'On the night of Friday 27 September, at least fifteen police officers were present at Royal Holloway Students’ Union in Surrey, engaging in the profiling and searching of students attending a freshers’ week social. This included both uniformed cops with tasers and sniffer dogs and, even more bizarrely, undercover police disguised as students. The police had been invited into the student union by a commercial manager; no student or elected student representative authorised their presence or was consulted. The police were particularly targeting black students: an all-too common reminder of the police's systematic racism. When a group of students attempted to challenge the police action, one of them – former Royal Holloway SU President and current University of London Union Vice President, Workers’ Liberty member Daniel Cooper – was manhandled to the ground by seven officers and arrested. He was held until Saturday afternoon'. 

Follow story at Royal Holloway Anti-Cuts Alliance (facebook)

Operation Condor: Prohibition London

If anyone got robbed, burgled or raped this weekend in London and wondered where the police were when they needed them - hey, they had other things on their mind.

Around 4,000 cops took part in a 48-hour 'Operation Condor' operation to enforce alchohol and other licensing laws. According to The Guardian today: 'Since 8am on Friday police have visited nearly 6,000 premises, where 1,046 offences were reported or disclosed during the operation, dubbed Operation Condor. Twenty-two venues were shut down, including pubs, saunas and massage parlours, with police checking for sex worker cards and that no-drinking zones had been enforced... At least 297 people were arrested for various offences, including 38 for theft, 20 for public order offences, 20 for possessing Class-A drugs, 22 for possessing Class-B drugs, 26 for possession with intent to supply, seven for possessing offensive weapons, 18 for drunkenness, and 52 for immigration offences' (in other words mostly victimless 'crimes' which any fishing expedition rounding up people in bars and clubs would find).

The operation included a show-piece raid on 93 Feet East in Brick Lane on Friday night: 'One of the largest individual operations involved 175 officers, including the Territorial Support Group, the Met police's helicopter and dog units, who raided the 93 Feet East club in Brick Lane after reports of dealers selling Class-A drugs. Police arrested nine people for offences, including possession of drugs with intent to supply, and the club was closed'.

The police have posted some 'raid porn' footage on youtube showing them piling in to 93 Feet East, the message being 'we are big, we are tough, and we mean business'. Ludicrous really, these periodic blitzes have been going for decades and they don't make the slightest difference to the levels of drug taking, or drinking after hours.

helicopter footage showing swarm of police at 93 Feet East 

By they way are the Metropolitan Police aware of the resonance of the term Operation Condor, particularly for the many Latin American migrants in London? It was also the name for a notorious campaign of terror conducted by right wing dictatorships in South America in the 1970s, during which tens of thousands of people were tortured and executed.

Discotheque enters the English language: 1960-66

Thanks to Google news and other archive searches it is possible to date reasonably accurately when words came to be widely used, at least in printed form. I believe the term discotheque (which literally means 'record library') to describe a nightclub where people danced to records dates back in French to World War 2. Several online sources mention that a club called La Discothèque opened on the rue Huchette in Paris in 1941.   

But it seems to have taken another twenty years for the term to catch on in English. The 

first newspaper references I have come across date to 1963-5,  with a number of items in The Times (London) referring to The Discotheque Club in Soho.

The paper reported on 18 October 1963 on the trial of Norbet Rondel, a former heavy for landlord Peter Rachman, who was accused of 'demanding menaces from Sergiusz Paplinski, proprietor of the 150 Club at Earls Court Road'. The court heard that Rondel had been a doorman at the Discotheque Club run by another associate of Rachman, Raymond Nash.

The following year the club was named in Parliament as the 'Soho nerve centre' of the 'purple heart racket' (Times, 10 June 1964), and a quote in the article suggests that the Discotheque Club was already open by 1961 .  In January 1965, five people appeared in court charged under the new Drugs (Prevention of Misuse) Act 1964 after being arrested in a police raid at the club in Wardour Street ('Youths and girls on drug charges', Times, 26 January 1965).

Rondel died in 2009,  and I have written a bit more about La Discotheque Club here (incidentally Marc Bolan worked there as a cloakroom attendant in his early 'Mark the Mod' days). As well as being sometimes credited with being London's first disco, it seems to have acted as a bridge for the word itself becoming established in English. Before long there were other clubs with similar names, and the word was being used generically for a place where records were played to dance to. By 1966 there was a Discotheque club in Hythe Bridge Street, Oxford, where in September a crowd of youths fought with police (Times, 12 September 1966). The Times also reported that a plan had been approved at St Mary's church, Woolwich: 'In the crypt a discotheque will be established as  centre for youth work' (24 August 1966).

YeYe and New York Discotheque

Another route into the printed English language seems to have been via fashion writers at Associated Press (AP) at around the same time.  Elsie Beall, an AP Fashion Writer reporting on a New York Couture Group event, made the first reference I have found to discotheque in an American paper in July 1964 to describe a dress: 'There aren't many short evening dresses around for fall except for the discotheque - pronounced dis-co-tek, in case you are having trouble with that world as we did at first hearing. It is just a slip of a dress, almost always black and flaring, or ruffling out at the high knee, with plenty of whirl for doing those dances where the feet stay in one spot while the rest of the body twists in all direction. Discotheque, it seems, is the name of the little Paris dance halls where the whole thing started'  (Ocala Star-Banner 17 July 1964 - like other AP reports this would have been syndicated and probably printed in many local and regional papers, but not all of them are online).

On the same day an AP report of the same event printed in the Nashua Telegraph stated: 'The faithful and femme fatale black dress or suit will be on the scene next fall like a million shadows. It will be sleek and chic, dressed up with white for the day, but bare and naughty at night for wearing to the discotheque'

Another Associated Press Fashion Writer, Jean Sprain Wilson (1923-2009), used the word the following month. Reviewing a James Galanos collection noted that 'For the discotheque enthusiasts the dresses were barer, with V-plunges, halter necks or shoestring straps uncovering pale raw bones' (Owosso Argus Press, 14 August 1964 and other local papers)/

The same writer makes the first published use I have found of the word 'discotheque jockey' in the context of the influence of French 'Ye Ye Styles' in New York:  'YeYe, the French version of youth's rebellion against the stodginess of old folks over 25, is now going strong in the USA. Born in Paris as a hip response to songs with a beat, YeYe came to be a term for audacious styles worn by young misses, then grew in meaning to encompass the current mood of youth itself - lively and uninhibited. Ask a New York den what is YeYe in town, for instance, and she undoubtedly will describe a popular hamburger joint with juke box movies; or a discotheque jockey at one of the fancier hotels who keeps crowds gyrating frenetically by blasting not one but three jump-and-wiggle records at once' (Eugene Register Guard, 23 October 1964)

Associated Press also mentioned the word in the surprizing context of a report about a party at Windsor Castle with 16 year old Prince Charles as MC!:  'Like it was a rave, man... the first Beat Ball in the history of the British royalty... The castle's crimson drawing room was turned into a discotheque - a nightclub which provides only recorded music for dancing'.

(Miami News, 28 Dec, 1964)

After writing this I have come across a recent Oxford University Press article covering similar territory - and coming to similar conclusions. They also note the first printed references in 1964 to the abbreviated version 'disco' to refer to both the dress and the nightclub.

See also: http://history-is-made-at-night.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/discotheque-dress-for-party-dancing-1964.html

Snakes for a Rave & other Ludicrous Valentine's Tales

India

'The Delhi Police on Monday busted a gang of snake smugglers and recovered four cobras and about half-a-litre of venom after a tip-off from an NGO People For Animals (PFA). According to police, the venom extracted from these snakes was to be used in high-end raves planned for Valentine's Day in and around the national capital.

So far, snake smuggling for skins or species value was common. However, smuggling cobras for venom meant for raves has alarmed the police. They have arrested two alleged smugglers and booked them for illegally carrying cobras. According to police, venom and snake bites are preferred by drug addicts in raves these days. They suspected that the four cobras were being smuggled to bite junkies.

Police said this new found drug is popular in Delhi raves. Snake bite thus joins morphine, cocaine and the rest as a sort of exotic stimulant. Apart from four cobras, the police also recovered a dead snake. They were investigating the matter further. PFA got information about the smuggling of snakes and it consequently informed the police leading to the arrest of the accused.

PFA activist Gaurav Gupta said, "We had information that some cobra snakes and their venom were to be smuggled to Delhi from Rajasthan so we laid a trap to catch the smuggled snakes. Cobras are killed in large numbers and their venom is smuggled to Delhi and NCR to be used in rave parties for doping purpose," Gupta added.

(India Today, February 13 2012)

Cambodia

'Police will be deployed to guesthouses in Phnom Penh today, and at least one school has asked authorities to crack down on flower sellers in a bid to prevent young lovers indulging in Valentine’s Day activities including . The Phnom Penh municipal authority announced yesterday it would order “all guesthouses and hotels in Phnom Penh” to strengthen security to avoid “anarchy” on a day that is increasingly popular across Cambodia.

Mak Hong, police chief of the capital’s Sen Sok district, said he would send officers to guesthouses and Phnom Penh municipal police chief Touch Naruth has ordered owners to ensure couples who check in today are over 18. “We just want to prevent anarchy,” Touch Naruth said.

Chhun Sarom, director of Wat Koh high school, said truancy rates on Valentine’s Day had increased in recent years, but he hopes a video supplied by the Ministry of Education will encourage students not to skip school with their sweethearts today... Chhun Sarom has also asked police to ban flower sellers near his school'.

(Phnom Penh, 14 February 2012)

Malaysia

'Islamic morality police have arrested at least five couples in a Malaysian city for being intimate on Valentine's Day, local media reported on Tuesday. It follows similar operations in previous years.


The Star, the country's largest newspaper, reported that the couples were arrested at budget hotels in the Malaysian city of Petaling Jaya in the state of Selangor. The raids began at 12:30 a.m. local time and continued throughout the night, concluding at around 4 a.m. local time.

The five couples were arrested by officers from the Selangor Islamic Affairs Department (Jais) for alleged khalwa, an Islamic law that prevents unmarried Muslims from being alone with someone of the opposite sex. Those arrested were identified as men and women between the ages of 20 and 30, the report said. If convicted, those arrested on Tuesday face a jail sentence of up to two years and a fine of up to 3,000 Malaysian ringgit ($984).

Last year, during an operation called Ops Valentine, Islamic morality police in Malaysia also arrested more than 80 people for alleged khalwa. Another 61 people were also hauled up for 'indecent behavior' and were enlisted for counseling sessions with the department. In 2005, Malaysia's Islamic authorities issued a fatwa to prevent Muslims from celebrating Valentine's Day since it is associated with vice activities that are prohibited in Islam'.

(Channel6 News, 14 February 2012) 

No to AB74 - the proposed Californian Anti-Raves Act

A campaign is growing against 'anti-rave' legislation being proposed in the California State Assembly by Assemblywoman Fiona Ma. AB 74, also known as the Anti-Raves Act of 2011, is worded as follows:

'SECTION 1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the Anti-Raves Act of 2011.

SEC. 2. Section 421 is added to the Penal Code, to read: 421. (a) Any person who conducts a public event at night that includes prerecorded music and lasts more than three and one-half hours is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or twice the actual or estimated gross receipts for the event, whichever is greater. (b) Subdivision (a) shall not apply to a public event on private property if the entity that conducts the public event has a business license to operate a bar, club, theater, entertainment venue, or other similar business, or to conduct sporting events, and conducting the public event is consistent with the business license. (c) For purposes of this section, "night" means that period between sunset and sunrise'.

In effect the law, if passed, would prohibit raves on public property and prevent raves on private property unless a business owner has a license to host such an event. Ma claims that 'Raves foster an environment that threatens the health and safety of our youth... The introduction of AB 74 is the first step toward eliminating these dangerous events'.

The bill follows the death in June of 2010 of a 15-year-old girl died at a rave at the publically owned Los Angeles Coliseum, and of two people in May 2010 at the state-owned Cow Palace in Daly City. But as opponents have pointed out, the bill actually makes no reference to drugs and in any case drug dealing is already covered by existing laws. By targeting 'pre-recorded' music, the bill is explicitly singling out electronic dance music, with Ma stating: "The bill is not intended to impact traditional music concerts and sporting events. AB 74 is about cracking down on raves that harbor drug use and lead to teenage deaths."

Check out the Facebook group: Protect Your Right to Dance: Anti-AB 74

Here's a short film of people staging a Right to Dance protest rally in Los Angeles in 1997 during a previous campaign against state harrassment of parties:



Obviously there are similarities here too with the British Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 which notoriously legislated against unlicensed raves playing music 'predominantly characterised by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats'.

The Black Album - Hanif Kureishi

Hanif Kureishi's novel The Black Album (1995) is, among other things, a great snapshot of late 1980s London. Its main protagonist, Shahid, is torn between the demands of militant Islamists at the time of the Rushdie Affair (1989) and the sexual and chemical possibilities of the secular world embodied in the rave scene.

There are some good descriptions of clubbing at the time with its mixture of love, ecstasy, crime, danger, joy and vacancy. Shahid's first E experience starts with a trip to a club in south London:

'The lip of the bridge was slipping them into the mouth of south London... They turned into a narrow cul-de-sac designed for murders, past workshops, lock-up garages and miserable-looking trees. They took a sharp corner into a lane. The building at the end, subtly vibrating, was the White Room. It was a silver warehouse.

In front of it was a forecourt along the centre of which had been laid a pathway of rolled barbed wire. The whole area was circled by a high fence and was washed in harsh yellow light, making it resemble a prison yard. Three pill-box entrances were manned by sentries mumbling into radios. Crowds surrounded them in the freezing night. Some kids, not admitted, clung shivering to the fence. Others attempted to climb it like refugees, yelling through at the building, before being yanked back to earth and pushed away.

Deedee gave her name and they were admitted. Filmed by security cameras, they swung through the floodlit walkway while being watched enviously. It was like being pop stars at a première. They entered a dark bar area of tables and chairs, where people sat drinking water and juice beneath billowing parachutes. Alcohol was not for sale.

‘This way.’

He followed her through maze-like tunnels of undulating canvas. Eventually they were released into a cavernous room containing at least five hundred people, where shifting coloured slides were projected on to the walls. There was a relentless whirlwind of interplanetary noises. Jets of kaleidoscopic light sprayed the air. Many of the men were bare-chested and wore only thongs; some of the women were topless or in just shorts and net tops. One woman was naked except for high heels and a large plastic penis strapped to her thighs with which she duetted. Others were garbed in rubber, or masks, or were dressed as babies. The dancing was frenzied and individual. People blew whistles, others screamed with pleasure…

With his eyes half closed, he peered into the incandescent ultra-violet haze. He noticed, through the golden mist, that no one appeared to have any great interest in anyone else, though people would fall into staring at one another. Then he was doing it; everyone was looking so beautiful. But before he could think why this might be, or why he was enjoying himself so much, an undertow of satisfaction rippled through him, as if some creature were sighing in his body. He felt he was going to be lifted off his feet. The feeling left him and he felt deserted. He wanted it back. It came and came. In a pounding trance he started writhing joyously, feeling he was part of a waving sea. He could have danced for ever, but not long after she said, ‘We should go.’
Electric waves of light flickered in the air. Fronds of fingers with flames spurting from them waved at the DJs, flown in from New York, sitting in their glass booths.

Afterward they head further south to a party in a squatted mansion:

They arrived at the ominous iron fence of a white mansion, the sort of place an English Gatsby would have chosen, he imagined. Trucks were parked in the driveway. Big men stood in the gloom. They searched Shahid, putting their hands down his trousers; he had to remove his socks and shake them while standing on one foot in the mud.

They went into the marble hall and found themselves staring up at a grand staircase. Then they passed the efficient cloakroom, the bar and the stuffed polar bear on its hind legs with a light in its mouth, traversed the deep white carpet, through doors, wide passageways and a conservatory where trees touched the roof, until they came to a Jacuzzi in which everyone was naked. Beyond was an illuminated indoor swimming pool. On its shadowy surface floated dozens of lemon and lime-coloured balloons. Beyond that the garden stretched away into the distance, lit by gassy blue flames. It was the perfect venue for a house party…

The house had been squatted the previous evening after being claimed by the drummer of the Pennies from Hell, a window cleaner who’d spotted it on his rounds. Tonight it was overrun by hordes of boys and girls from south London. They had pageboy haircuts, skateboard tops, baseball caps, hoods, bright ponchos and twenty-inch denim flares. Deedee said that most had probably never been inside such a house before, unless they were delivering the groceries. Now they were having the time of their lives. By the end of the weekend the house would be ashes. ‘The kids too,’ she added.

Deedee and Shahid started up the stairs, but dozens of people were coming down. Others danced where they stood with their hands in the air, crying, ‘Everybody’s free to feel good, everybody’s freee . . . ‘ Some just sat nodding their heads with their eyes closed. Then Shahid lost Deedee. On the landing a runty little wiry kid had taken up a pitch and was jigging about and shouting, ‘Want anything, want anything . . . Eeeee . . . E for the people! Up the working class!’

…Upstairs in the chillin’ space no one was vertical; kids were lying on the floor not moving — except to kiss or stroke one another — as if they’d been massacred. Shahid needed to join them, and he lay down, slotting into a space between the bodies. The moment he shut his eyes his mind, which in the past he had visualized as ancient and layered like a section through the earth’s crust, became a blazing oblong of light in which coloured shapes were dancing… He was high and accelerating — liquid, as if the furnace in his stomach was simmering his bone and muscle into lava. But what the girl said grated. Somewhere in his mind there lurked desolation: the things he normally liked had been drained off and not only could he not locate them, he couldn’t remember what they were. He needed to find a pen and list the reasons for living. But what on the list could be comparable to the feeling of this drug? He had been let into a dangerous secret; once it had been revealed, much of life, regarded from this high vantage point, could seem quite small.

He and the girl next to him were kissing, drawing on one another’s tongues until they felt their heads would fuse. Someone was lying down beside him and tugging at his shoulder. Shahid ignored them. The room had become one nameless body, one mouth and kiss.

…They clambered into the silence of the taxi and discovered their ears were yearning for music much as one’s stomach complains for food, but there was none available.

The song mentioned is Everybody's Free by Rozalla. I remember dancing to this at a party in Newcastle in 1991 to celebrate the release of a prisoner who had been jailed for refusing to pay the poll tax. On the chorus, everybody sang her name, 'Beccy Palmer's Free'.

Shahid's experiences open up a vision of the city as a giant desiring machine:

'This journey, as he headed home, involved a different disturbance. It had been the best night. Now he wanted to dream it again, luxuriating in what he remembered… he could see that today, although the secrets of desire were veiled, sexual tension was everywhere. He couldn’t doubt its circulating tangibility. Beneath the banality and repetition of this ordinary day there ran, like the warm inhabited tube tunnels under the city, flirtation, passion and the deepest curiosities. People dressed, gestured, moved, to display themselves and attract. They were sizing each other up, fantasizing, wanting to desire and be adored.

Skirts, shoes, haircuts, looks, gestures: enticement and fascination were everywhere, while the world went to work. And such allure wasn’t a preliminary to real sex, it was sex itself. Out there it was not innocent. People yearned for romance, desire, feeling. They wanted to be kissed, stroked, sucked, held and penetrated more than they could say. The platform of Baker Street Station was Arcadia itself. He had had no idea that the extraordinary would be alive and well on the Jubilee Line. Today he could see and feel the lure'.

The novel takes its title from Prince's famous lost album, available only on bootleg after its release was cancelled in 1987 (in the novel Shahid is a big Prince fan).

More creeping prohibition?

Worrying story from Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph (3 August 2010) about drugs and alcohol testing in pubs and clubs:

'Revellers including teenagers were tested for drugs and alcohol as part of a police crackdown on pubs and clubs. Police have been "stamping down hard" on the abuse of alcohol and alcohol legislation with a force-wide operation since March, including breathalysing more than 90 youngsters attending an under-18s disco in Kettering. The breathalyser test carried out in May was not compulsory and several youngsters chose not to undergo the test – but they were not allowed admission to the venue. Of the 96 youngsters who agreed to take the test, 14 tested positive for alcohol and were spoken to and offered advice by officers. Sgt Ian Fletcher, of Northamptonshire Police, said: "Some of the kids ran off rather than be breathalysed but our attendance sent out a strong message."

... Officers also drug-tested more than 120 people in town centre pubs and clubs in one night. Of the 126 people officers checked, people in nine premises tested positive for class A drugs'.

I'm not sure what powers, if any, the police have to do this. I believe it is voluntary to undertake them, but then again I can't believe that anybody would freely consent to being tested if they knew they'd taken something they shouldn't have. No doubt the police involved fudge the legal niceties.

Meanwhile, Lewisham Council in South London is proposing to trial 'a borough-wide Designated Public Place Order (or Drinking Control Zone)' which 'will give police discretionary powers to stop people and confiscate, demand and dispose of any alcohol within the boundaries of Lewisham borough'. Failure to comply with a request from the Police to hand over alcohol would result in arrest and/or a fine of up to £500. As I argued over at Transpontine:

'There are some broader issues at stake here. The first is the use of arbitrary police powers. The historical relationship between police, courts and the individual in the UK requires the police to present evidence of wrong doing to a court, with the person accused having the right to defend themselves before a judgement is made on their guilt and a sentence passed. With the DPPO, the police officer is judge, jury and 'executioner' - they can impose a punishment on the spot, such as pouring away somebody's drink, with the person affected having no right to question their authority or decision before 'sentence' is implemented. Worse, under the Police and Criminal Justice Act 2001 (which gave Council's powers to introduce DPPOs), these arbitrary powers can be extended to other 'authorised officers' such as park wardens.

The second wider issue is the creeping hyper-regulation of public space. The nature of public spaces is that people engage in lots of different behaviours and activities, some of which other people may find irritating, annoying or even mildly offensive. As long as people aren't actually harming others, they should be left to get on it. Just because some people disapprove of others' actions is no reason to ban them. Just because a few people engaging in an activity do cause harm to others is no reason to band everybody from that activity. In this case the 'drunk and disorderly' behaviour of a few people, already covered by existing laws, is being used as the basis to affect everybody's right to drink in public. It may not be a total booze ban, but it does mean that drinking in public is only permitted if the police choose to allow it'.

The Manifesto Club have lots of information about Designated Public Order Orders and their implementation elsewhere, as well as some good arguments against them.

Plastic People under attack

Following yesterday's story about the threat to the future of the Ministry of Sound, news that another London club is in more immediate danger: Plastic People in Shoreditch.

According to a new facebook group, Keep Plastic People Alive, 'THE POLICE ARE TRYING TO SHUT DOWN PLASTIC PEOPLE. There is a notice outside the door saying there are 2 reasons why the Police want to take the license away. 1/ PREVENTION OF PUBLIC NUISANCE 2/ PREVENTION OF CRIME AND DISORDER. Plastic People have until the 11th March to appeal'. Hackney Council have apparently received an application relating to the club from the police under the Licensing Act 2003 to 'review premises on prevention of crime and disorder and public nuisance basis'.

This would seem to follow on from a police/council visit in December. The Hackney Gazette (16 December 2009) reported:

'Some of Shoreditch's trendiest hotpots were rapped this week in a joint Christmas crackdown from Hackney Council and Hackney Police. A new team of officers - known as JEDI - discovered evidence of cocaine in the female toilets and DJ booth of Plastic People in Curtain Road. Seven clubbers were also turned away from Hoxton Pony in Curtain Road and Cargo in Rivington Street after testing positive for drugs whilst queuing .And officers discovered problems with health and safety and noise levels at Elbow Room on Curtain Road.

Both Plastic People and Elbow Room have said they will work with the council to improve their standards of safety. Cllr Alan Laing, cabinet member for neighbourhoods said: "Pubs and clubs in party areas like Shoreditch, have a responsibility to the community who drink in them and the people who live around them. Through our joint enforcement efforts, we are sending out a clear message that those that fail to comply with the law will not be allowed to continue pedaling a raw deal in Hackney".

There is incredulity amongst regulars about the club being singled out. As one person testified on facebook: 'I have never, ever seen any trouble at Plastic People, it has always had the soundest crowd and atmosphere, once I dropped my wallet on the floor, asked at the bar at the end of the night on the off chance someone had handed it in and a complete stranger walked over and handed it to me, still with all cards, money etc ... in it, testament to the kind of lovely people who go to Plastics. These allegations are utter bull shit! This is an amazing venue, with the best sound system in London, that supports amazing music. If Plastic People is shut down it will be a travesty'.

With the Foundry in Shoreditch now scheduled for demolition there are concerns that having done the job of making the area fashionable, clubs and bars are beginning to be displaced by gentrification.

Prohibition and the Pleasure Principle

The Pleasure Principle by Kane Race (Sydney Alumni Magazine, Summer 2009) is an excellent article on the absurdities of drugs prohibition, in the context of policing of queer parties in Australia. It's starting point is a police raid on on the Azure Party in Summer 2007
part of the annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney.

Race argues that: 'Dance parties have long been a central element of gay community life in Sydney, and recreational drugs have played a significant part in the formation of self and community. To thwart these events by seizing upon this aspect is to deprive a whole subculture of one of its most significant community-building rituals'.

More generally he discusses how he enforcement of prohibition results in a situation where:

'casual intimidation of ordinary citizens is, if not already normalised, then rapidly becoming so – at youth events, in migrant and racially marked suburbs, and in the recreational precincts and public transport arteries of numerous states and nations. What’s striking is how the status of certain substances as “illicit” provides an occasion for the state to engage in what could be described as a disciplinary performance of moral sovereignty. This performance bears little relation to the actual dangers ofdrug consumption – in fact, it often exacerbates those dangers...

The state allows many forms of dangerous recreation, such as hang-gliding, football and mountaineering. And then of course there are those legal, revenue-raising drugs like alcohol (much more likely to be associated with violent crime and aggression than club drugs, incidentally). We would be horrified if the state tried to make these activities as dangerous as possible in order to discourage people from trying them. But this is exactly what is allowed in the attempted enforcement of drug prohibition, which in its present form precludes quality control, puts the drug market in the hands of organised criminals, and threatens users.

The illicit drug user has become a special and symbolic figure for the contemporary state. Their consumption practices resemble the licensed (legal) pleasures of the market, but can also be made to represent their excess. In times of governmental stress, the state jumps at the chance to stage a drama between immoral consumers and the supposedly moral state. But this drama seems more like high-profile posturing on the part of the police, designed to reassure middle-class voters that the state is tough on law and order, and driven more by the state’s desire to be seen to be “doing something” than any considered response to the issues at hand. Indeed, the persistence of these policing practices despite the evidence accumulated against them suggests that their counter-productivity is beside the point. For the point is the public spectacle of detection and humiliation, the making-suspect of populations, and the desire to create a demand for authority in the sphere of consumption. The state confirms its image of itself and its moral constituency in these forcible attempts to expose its other'.

Thimbleberry Festival Under Attack

Following the cancellation of this year's Big Green Gathering thanks to official pressure, another festival is under attack.

On Friday 11th December 2009 Andy Norman, host and organiser of Thimbleberry Music Festival in County Durham, UK appeared in court facing the charge that he "did permit the use of cannabis on his premises". The charge relates to alleged use by the festival-goers of cannabis at the last September festival. He has not entered a plea and is due back in court on the 5th February 2010 to face committal to Crown Court.

The charge is being brought under Section 8 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. An amendment to this Act passed by the Government in 2001 made it a criminal offence for people to knowingly allow premises they own, manage, or have responsibility for, to be used by any other person for the adminstration or use of any controlled drugs.

A conviction would doubtless be used as a pretext not to grant a licence for the festival next year, and would also set a very dubious precedent. People inhale at pretty much all festivals, so presumably the police could charge anybody organising or hosting a festival with this offence.

There is a facebook group in support of the festival.

Kuala Lumpur Karaoke Raid

From Bernama.com:

'KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 2009- Police who raided a karaoke cum mini discotheque in the city early Saturday morning, found 37 revellers under the influence of drugs. What was shocking was that more than half of the revellers inside the mini disco were Muslims who were either drunk or under the influence of drugs and showed no respect for the Holy month of Ramadan. The raid, headed by ASP Mahani Mohamed from the Kuala Lumpur vice, gambling and secret society branch (D7) also found 14 police officers among the revellers at the New Universal KTB or more popularly known as Laiketong in Taman Maluri, Cheras at 7.30am.

During the raid which lasted until 1 pm, 118 revellers at the three-storey entertainment outlet were screened and from the 37 who tested positive for Ketamin, Eramin 5 and syabu, were 21 women, including three Indonesians and one from Laos. Police also found 10 rooms that had been turned into mini discotheques for revellers who were Muslims. The owner of the premises would also be referred to the City Hall for operating well past the operation time allocated'.

(photo of women leaving the club from Malaysia Star)

Malaysia: police arrested in disco raid

KUALA LUMPUR: Five policemen, including a chief inspector, were among 70 disco revellers arrested by police yesterday after they tested positive for drug abuse. Deputy Superintendent Aida Abdul Hamid led a 50-strong police team from Bukit Aman in the 3am raid on the Raptor discotheque in Jalan Kepong, Jinjang..."When we entered the premises, police found more than 300 party revellers, aged between 20 and 40, lounging around and dancing." The management was ordered to turn off the music and switch on the lights," a police spokesman said.

The party revellers, 215 men and 91 women, were divided into two groups and given a small plastic container each. They were ordered to submit a urine sample for drug testing."During the checks it was revealed that 15 policemen were among the party-goers." Following tests of their urine samples, five policemen including a chief inspector tested positive for drug abuse," the spokesman said. It is understood that the chief inspector, in his 40s, tested positive for ketamine and amphetamine. It was later revealed that the senior police officer was attached to the Kajang police headquarters.The other four policemen who tested positive were rank-and-file personnel from several districts in the Klang Valley. The remaining 10 policemen, including an assistant superintendent, were released when their tests came up negative...

Police found numerous pills scattered all over the floor, later found to be Eramin 5, along with several packets of a powdery substance, believed to be ketamine. Besides the five policemen, the other 65 party-goers detained were 38 men and 27 women. The spokesman said the discotheque opened five weeks ago and was one of the biggest outlets in the Kepong area.

Full story New Straits Times, 26 June 2009

Vietnam: Karaoke, Ecstasy and Dancing

'HO CHI MINH CITY — It is early evening and another night of singing has begun in earnest at Style Karaoke, a plush club where high-flyers in Vietnam's commercial capital come to let off steam. Music blasts from behind the glass doors of the small rooms where groups gather to sing and, as the rhythm takes hold, to dance. And that, the communist government says, is the problem. It wants to ban dancing at karaoke bars in what reports have said is a bid to limit drug use.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism posted the proposed ban on its website last month and invited public comment on the move, its latest attempt to clamp down on lawlessness at the popular singing venues.
But at Style and other neon-lit clubs on Su Van Hanh street, the heart of karaoke entertainment in the city formerly known as Saigon, the proposal is dismissed as unworkable.


"I think it's not feasible because these people who go to karaoke want to relieve their stress," says Dang Duy Thanh, the gel-haired manager of Style. "If we just force them to stay there singing without feeling comfortable, that's not right".

Le Anh Tuyen, head of the culture ministry's legal department, reportedly sees things differently. Tuyen, who five years ago warned that karaoke was linked to prostitution, was quoted by the VietnamNet news website last month as saying the drug ecstasy would be used in karaoke rooms if dancing was not banned. "Ecstasy always goes with wine and music," he said. "In my opinion, karaoke is a cultural activity which is always latent with social evils'.... Tuyen told VietnamNet the government has statistics about the use of ecstasy at karaoke bars, but the report gave no data. "I'm sure the real number of cases is higher than in our statistics. Evils will not be prevented without banning dancing," he was quoted as saying. "In our country, karaoke often goes with ecstasy and prostitution."

... "It's not right to ban us from dancing in karaoke clubs," said one K-T customer, who arrived with a laptop bag on his shoulder. "Maybe they should ban dance bars where they have prostitutes. If they just make a general ban on dancing in karaokes, it's not reasonable."

"It's impossible" to ban dancing, says Dang Duc Han, standing in a T-shirt, his arms folded, outside the Karaoke 64 club he manages. "If people feel in the mood they will dance", Han says as customers ride up on their motorcycles, and a child with a toy bicycle brushes against his leg. In 2006 Vietnam banned alcohol in karaoke bars - but in practice drinking continues - while a year earlier it stopped issuing licences for bars, karaoke parlours and dance halls. Earlier draft legislation even called for karaoke clubs to be shut down, after Tuyen said many served as brothels. In his interview with VietnamNet, Tuyen admitted inspectors were not able to check karaoke clubs very often and said "people themselves must obey the rules".

More here: AFP, 18 May 2009

Disco Police in Thailand

'Deputy Chief of Pattaya Police Police Sub-Lieutenant Sutham Choasritong and about 30 police officers raided the Hollywood discotheque located on Pechtrakul Road, Central Pattaya, in the morning of 26 April. There at this famous night spot, officers stopped the revelry and detained 500 customers, both Thai and foreigners. Officers then made both an identity check and urine test on a number of suspect people. It turned out that only 8 people proved drug positive and were taken away for further questioning' (source: Pattaya People)

In a similar raid at the same venue in 1998, all 600 people present were required to give a urine sample for a drugs test.

Drugs Raid at the Peace Cafe 1962

Stewart Home continues his exploration of the undocumented corners of the 1960s London beatnik scene with a post on West London face, Phil Green. Stewart mentions an interesting sounding place in Chelsea:

'On 12 March 1962 The Times carried the headline ‘Drug Charges After Raid On Café’ above an article that mentioned Green among others, then on 26 March 1962 the same paper followed this up with ‘C.N.D. Supporters Given Drugs’, concluding on 26 April with a news story entirely devoted to Phil Green entitled ‘Youth’s Beard A Part Of Façade’. Philip John Green then aged twenty was one of ten men and women arrested for their involvement with a ‘drug ring’ centred on The Peace Café in Fulham Road, Chelsea. At the time Green worked at this establishment as a chef. He pleaded guilty to possession of Indian hemp and twenty grains of opium, as well as ‘hubble bubble pipes’ used for opium smoking'.

The Peace Cafe was described in court as a supposed 'local headquarters of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament' that was actually a place where drugs were 'administered to young people who were supporters of that campaign and congregated there' (Times 26.3.1962). The Magistrate referred to it as 'an absolute den of iniquity and debauchery' when sentencing the manager, Kenneth Browning to 2 month's imprisonment 'for permitting the cafe to be used for smoking opium'. Browning told the court that he had been a supporter of the Committee of 100, the direct action wing of the peace movement (Times, 4 April 1962).

I haven't found out anything more about this place, except that a Peace Cafe was opened in the 1960s in Fulham by Rachel Pinney, a member of the Direct Action Committee against Nuclear War. I assume this was the same cafe, one of those places where currents from the beatnik, drugs and radical political scenes intersected several years before the 'counter culture' became a media phenomenon.

If you know any more about the Peace Cafe, or any other interesting clubs, bars and coffee houses from that time please leave a comment.

(see also The Gyre and Gimble)

Clubbed to Death

I've posted this before at my south east London blog, Transpontine, but am reposting here as a follow up to the earlier Club UK post on crime, drugs and London clubbing.

Raving Lunacy: Clubbed to death – adventures on the rave scene (2000) is by Dave Courtney - sometime East Dulwich resident, former Southwark Council dustman (at Grove Vale depot), and celebrity villain. Must admit I’m not big on the loveable gangster genre, violence isn’t glamorous - it’s brutal, bloody and leaves behind grieving children who are damaged for life. In this book, Courtney plays up to his image and some of the stories can no doubt be taken with a pinch of salt. Still, he does a service in documenting the early days of acid house and raving in late 80s/early 90s South London.

By his own account, Courtney went to some of the first 'acid house' events in London - Shoom in Thrale Street, Southwark and the parties held in old prison museum in Clink Street by London Bridge: 'The Clink was wicked... Very druggy and very housey place, full of proper hardcore havin'-it-larger's in there. And it was good cos it had all these individual cells so it was like having loads of little VIP lounges'.

Soon he started a club of his own: 'near the Elephant and Castle, I found a viaduct arch beneath the mainline railway track running over John Ruskin Street... The Arches was the first all-night, illegal rave in London... All the other clubs in London shut at about 2 am but mine was still banging at 8 o'clock in the morning! ... Under this great big curved, black and red railway arch roof there was the scaffolding gantry holding the DJ on the decks, massive speakers either side and the lights hanging above; and below that this heaving mass of lunatics just going completely mental, arms in the air, whistles and foghorns blowing... Steam and joint smoke hung like a fucking fog, people were dancing on speakers and scaffolding... we'd have a girl walking round in a Playboy Bunny outfit with an ice-cream tray round her neck full of ready-rolled spliffs for a quid each - Get yer Joints 'ere!' And big plastic dustbins filled to the top with ice and free apples and Ice-pops... we had a mad mixture of people: from hardcore ravers, professional clubbers, black geezers, white geezers, plenty of women, football hooligan nutters going all smiley, hardnuts softened by Ecstasy... I had names DJing there before they became superstar DJs like they are now - Danny Rampling, Carl Cox, Fabio & Grooverider, Brandon Block'.

The police at the nearby Carter Street station were not happy, and eventually it was raided by 'army of 150 police, with some fuckers called No 3 Area Territorial Support Group in flameproof overalls, bulletproof body armour and steel hel­mets with radio microphones, carrying an angle grinder, a hydraulic ram, sledgehammer'. 26 people were arrested and one person was apparently later jailed for five years for his part in running the club.

Later he was involved in putting on free open-air raves - 'I bought a massive removal van with a diesel generator ·and drove in on to fields or grasslands. Tooting Common was one. Peckham Rye was another... I'd open up the back of the lorry, set up the DJs decks and put these dirty big speakers outside. We'd get eight, nine hundred people up there really going [or it. Speakers booming it all out. And cos I didn't charge no one the law had a job Slopping me doing it. It just started attracting loads of gay blokes, which is something I hadn't counted on. But then it was the Common, the well known shag-spot for gay geezers doing some fresh air cruising, so I guess it made sense'.

He also ran a club for a while at the Fitness Centre in Southwark Park Road: 'It used to be the hottest place. It was this windowless basement space made for about 30 geezers to work out in; not two hundred people to get off their tits'.

Then he put on a club called 'Crazy Mondays', at Futures on Deptford Broadway, a club owned by Harry Hayward (later as a 'retired gangster', the Chair of Deptford Action Group for the Elderly): 'It ran from 6 a.m. Monday morning till about 2 p.m. in the afternoon... there was villains, hardcore ravers, pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, lap dancers, strippers, drag queens, club owners, club promoters, club dancers, celebrities, sports stars (Nigel Benn and Gary Mason were there), doormen, bar staff, waitresses, croupiers, gamblers, cab drivers, sex club people - basically, mostly everyone that had· worked over the weekend in the nightclub trade watching other people having a good time, all came down to mine to have their own'.

Courtney was evidently in that generation of crooks who saw the money-making opportunities in the club scene but he is also obviously a true believer, extolling the wonders of ecstasy and raving in breaking down racism in London and challenging his own anti-gay prejudice.

Club UK in Wandsworth: Love, Ecstasy and Crime

Heading out to Kew Gardens over Christmas, we drove through Wandsworth. As always on that journey through South West London, my partner and I reminisced incredulously about how we used to drag ourselves for miles across the capital by public transport to visit that part of the city. And we weren't alone - because from 1993 to 1996, Wandsworth was the home of Club UK, attracting people from all over London and beyond to queue in Buckhold Road next to the Arndale Shopping Centre.

Like many new clubs at this time, it was launched in a blaze of publicity about its luxurious decor and facilities. Like most, the reality was that the money was mainly spent on the sound system, and it was in fact a 'utilitarian, cavernous warehouse' (to quote DJ magazine), with 3 different music rooms - the 'techno room', the 'pop art room' and the main room. Promoter was Sean McClusky, who was also involved with the Leisure Lounge in Holborn and previously The Brain in Soho (he had also been drummer in 1980s band JoBoxers).

There were two main nights. On Fridays, it was Final Frontier, a techno/trance night put on by Universe (who promoted the Tribal Gathering festivals with the Mean Fiddler). The flyer below exemplifies the rhetoric of that scene, with its talk of a 'our weekly marriage of spirituality and technology in perfect harmony' and its call for 'No rules, no limits and no sell out'.

Final Frontier flyer, January 1995 (click to enlarge)

Saturdays was a house night, with a dominant soundtrack of the kind of anthems despised as 'handbag house' by tedious musos, but which I loved (and indeed still do). Yes lots of disco diva vocals and four to floor rhythms. When I think of Saturday nights at Club UK, the tracks that come to mind are things like Your Loving Arms by Billy Ray Martin (the Junior Vasquez Soundfactory mix), To the Beat of the Drum by La Luna, Wildchild's Renegade Master, Push the Feeling On by the Nightcrawlers. Oh and that piano break track with the sample of Blur's Girls and Boys (Pianoman - Blurred).

Club UK flyer, February 1995 (click to enlarge)

What made Club UK special was a crowd of 1400 people for which the term 'up for it' seems completely inadequate. I can still vividly picture walking in there for the first time on a Saturday night - as soon as we stepped through the doors it felt like we were in the middle of an explosion of energy. The track playing was Reach Up (Papa's got a brand new pigbag) by Perfecto Allstarz - the whole place was erupting, there didn't seem to be any sense of a separate dancefloor, everybody in the place was dancing including the bar staff. You would meet all kinds of people there from public school kids (there were press reports of Etonians being suspended for taking drugs there) to squaddies - I remember on that first visit chatting to a couple who had done a bunk from a local children's home to be there.

Club UK was the opposite of cool, in every sense of the word. It was a sweatbox with little or no air conditioning, condensation dripping off the ceilings and sometimes unbearably hot and crowded. One night when we there they had to open the fire exit into the Arndale to let people breathe - so there was an impromtu chill out area on a balcony overlooking the deserted shopping centre (pretty sure this was on their second birthday party, July 1st 1995, with Danny Rampling playing). I remember sucking ice pops to try and cool down. The place was ecstasy fuelled, so many people would go the whole night without buying a drink. Many dubious clubs at that time used to turn off the water in the bathrooms so that people had to buy water from the bar. I don't recall Club UK going to that extreme, but sometimes the cold water taps were reduced to a dribble and they certainly made a small fortune selling their own brand of bottled water. Like in many clubs, there were many random acts of kindness as strangers offered each other sips of water on the dancefloor.

South London Press, 17 October 1995 (click to enlarge)

One hazard was the sporadic police raids. The first one was in December 1994 on a Friday night. Then in October 1995, 150 police raided it on a Saturday. Operation Blade involved dogs, horses, and the Territorial Support Group. 800 clubbers were turned out on to the streets, and many searched. 10 people were arrested. The police raid on Club UK was carried out with TV cameras in attendance, correctly described by the clubowners as a 'media circus'. It seems the raid was deliberately timed to provide a story on which to hang the launch two days later of a new anti-drugs campaign called SNAP (Say no and phone). Ironically the police launched this campaign at Club UK's South London rival, The Ministry of Sound, a place where drug use was just as widespread.

 

Mixmag, November 1995 (click to enlarge)

With hindsight, there were though some dodgy people around Club UK. As in the United States when prohibition of alcohol led to the Mafia control of drinking clubs, the prohibition of drugs like ecstasy created a huge market for UK gangsters to fill.

In December 1995, three men were found shot dead in a Range Rover in a country lane near Rettendon in Essex: Tony Tucker, Pat Tate and Craig Rolfe. There are different versions of why they were killed, as they had many enemies from their involvement in violence and drug smuggling. But it is well established that Tucker ran security at Club UK. According to Tony Thompson in 'Bloggs 19: the story of the Essex Range Rover Triple Murders' (London: Warner, 2000), 'Controlling the doors of a club instantly means that you control who sells drugs inside. Tucker began to charge dealers 'rent' of around £1000 per week in return for granting them exclusive access to the club... in March 1994, twenty-year old Kevin Jones died at Club UK in south London after taking ecstasy. In a bid to track the source, police put two of the club's suspected dealers under surveillance and discovered they had been paying Tony Tucker, the man responsible for security at the club, £1000 per weekend for the exclusive rights to sell ecstasy and cocaine'. Thompson also suggests that Tucker supplied the ecstasy to a dealer at Raquels nightclub in Basildon, the source of the infamous E that caused the death in November 1995 of Leah Betts at her 18th birthday party.

The Rettendon events are fictionalised in Jake Arnott's novel True Crime, where one of the characters declares: 'It's who runs the doors, Gaz. That's what this thing is going to be all about. It doesn't matter who runs the club, who promotes the event or whatever. It's who's in control of security, that's going to be the thing. That way you decide who can bring in drugs and deal inside the place'.

 
The fulll story of criminal gangs in the 1990s club explosion remains untold. That gangsters like Tucker controlled the drugs trade in clubs is not surprizing, but as they made more and more money it seems likely that some must have crossed over to investing profits in buying and running clubs. It would be interesting to know where some of the money came from for some of the high profile new clubs that opened in that period. And its a sobering thought that in any counter-culture/alternative scene where drugs are prominent, you are only ever a few degrees of separation away from a thug with a gun.

But still... who can forget those nights in Wandsworth.

The pop art room at Club UK

More memories, flyers and mixes on the Final Frontier and Club UK groups at Facebook. Great to remember all the good nights, but let's not forget those who didn't make it: Andreas Bouzis (18) and Kevin Jones (20) who died after collapsing at the club.

See also Clubbed to Death

Party Police Round-Up

Australia: Riot Police called to Sydney Rave (In the Mix, September 1 2008)

'A secret warehouse party in Sydney’s Inner West was shut down by police early on Sunday morning, causing unhappy revelers to spill onto busy Parramatta Road, forcing its closure for around 90 minutes. Riot police and the dog squad were called to the party by concerned residents, and it’s estimated the illegal warehouse rave had between 1,000 and 1,500 party goers. The party was split over three floors of the abandoned Parramatta Road warehouse, but it was closed by authorities around 1am. Ravers on the building’s top floor are said to have showered police with bottles when asked to leave, and news reports indicate authorities are now on the hunt for the people responsible, as well as the event’s organisers'.

'I was at the party on Saturday night, standing directly behind decks on the drum n bass stage when the riot police invaded. The news reports state there was no damage to police vehicles or property, but what about the damage to the equipment caused by the over zealous police who stormed in and smashed both turntables and attempted to smash the mixer (about $5,000 worth of damage) and then they pushed and shoved and bashed everyone they could get their battons on. This was complete overkill and so unnecessary. there were no arrests on the night so clearly the "riotous partygoers" were non existant'.

England: 'Curfew order on man at rave' (Lynn News, 23 October 2008)

'A Swaffham man who went to a rave when a court had ordered him not to, now faces a curfew to keep him indoors seven days a week. [RW]... was caught by police on the record decks of an unlicensed music event at Gayton Thorpe in August, Lynn Magistrates heard on Tuesday.In April, a Norwich court had given him a two-year community order with a requirement he was “not to attend a rave or other unlicensed musical event”. [RW] admitted he had carried out an unauthorised licensable activity at Gayton Thorpe and accepted he was therefore in breach of the order.

... police became aware of the rave after a Gayton estate employee called them at midnight on Saturday, August 16, and said there were a number of cars and people gathering near his home... police found [RW] wearing headphones on the sound decks and he was arrested. Items taken by officers included 12 speakers, two generators, three turntables and five mixer-boxes. In a police interview, Walsh described the equipment as a “suicide rig” in that it was expected to be seized... The bench decided to revoke the original order and replace it with a new two-year order with a curfew, meaning [RW] will now have to stay at home from 8pm to 6am seven days a week for six months.

India: 'Police raid rave party' in Mumbai

'In one of the biggest police swoops in recent times, cops barged into a Juhu pub on Sunday night and picked up 240 youngsters on suspicion of 'doing drugs'. Nine of them, including an Israeli national, were arrested for peddling and distributing narcotic substances. The other 231 were made to undergo blood and urine tests and released on Monday afternoon after spending about 12 hours at the Azad Maidan police club' (Times of India, 7 October 2008)

'Blaring trance music, smoke-filled dance floors and stoned youngsters are no longer confined to just Goa or farmhouses in Mumbai's outskirts. Nightclubs and pubs in the city are fast becoming hotspots for rave parties. The busting of a rave party in Juhu is perhaps only the tip of the iceberg, say police officials. "Youngsters form a huge pie of the clientele. With higher disposable income and easy accessibility to high-end drugs, Mumbai is soon becoming popular," said a senior ANC official, requesting anonymity. Rave parties are characterised by high entrance fee, extensive drug use, chill rooms and even open sexual activities in some cases, said a senior officer from the Narcotics Control Bureau, Mumbai, on condition of anonymity. Apart from youngsters from affluent families, the upwardly-mobile people employed in BPOs and KPOs, film personalities, industrialists are also part of the clientele. "Attendance can range from 30 ravers in a small club of tens. While techno music and light shows are essential for raves, hard drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) have become an integral part of the rave culture," observed a senior cop.' (India Info, 7 October 2008 - KPO=Knowledge Processing Outsourcing, BPO= Business Process Outsourcing, i.e. IT, call centres etc.).

'The next time you get a whiff of a rave party in your neighbourhood or see a hippie-looking character trying to pass on drugs to youngsters, just dial a number and help the police.
The Anti Narcotics Cell (ANC) of the Mumbai police has introduced helplines for people to give information about suspected drug peddlers and about those consuming drugs. “We are aiming at maximum participation by people. We need their support to help us remove drug menace from our society,” said Vishwas Nangre Patil, deputy commissioner of police, ANC' (DNA Mumbai, 1 November 2008)

Grooverider Free

Only last night I thought to myself, 'why's every one gone quiet about Grooverider? Shouldn't we be making more fuss about him being in jail?' I started working on a 'free Grooverider' post and lo and behold by my psychic powers of persuasion he has been released today!

For those who don't know, the drum & bass DJ (real name Raymond Bingham) was arrested in Dubai in November 2007 after being caught with 2.16 grams of cannabis at the airport. He was jailed for four years.