Council Puts Temporary Ban On City-Run Raves

Council Puts Temporary Ban On City-Run Raves: Minority warn that city’s reversal could increase drug use

Published On: May 11, 2000

Source: National Post (Canada)

A badly divided Toronto council yesterday took the first step toward banning city-sanctioned raves.

But the temporary suspension of the police-supervised, all-night dance parties came amid warnings it will drive the events underground and make young people easier prey for drug dealers.

“I don’t think it’s the responsible thing to do,” Olivia Chow, a Downtown councillor, said of the mayor’s controversial push to outlaw legal raves at Exhibition Place. “We’ve taken a step in the wrong direction,” she added.

Councillors actually came very close to going the other way and rejecting Mel Lastman’s motion that “all [municipal] agencies, boards, commissions and departments immediately suspend the leasing of any city-owned facility for the purpose of holding rave parties.”

Ms. Chow had called for that resolution to be delayed until after a coroner’s inquest into the illegal rave-related death of Allen Ho—a Ryerson University student who died a few day short of his 21st birthday. But the councillor’s deferral motion was defeated by a single vote.

“I think that the inquest will give recommendations that will be very comprehensive,” Ms. Chow maintained.

Mr. Ho died from an overdose of the drug Ecstasy about 15 hours after he collapsed at a rave in the underground garage of a west-end warehouse. The investigation of his death began this week.

The closeness of the vote on her motion gave Ms. Chow hope the suspension of raves at Exhibition Place could be lifted in August when council expects to get a full report from Julian Fantino, the chief of police, on “a course of action for the control and eradication of illegal drugs” at such events.

“Hopefully, by that time, council will do the right thing,” Ms. Chow said yesterday.

But the mayor, who wholeheartedly supported the Safe Rave Protocol that councillors approved unanimously last December in order to clear the way for supervised dance parties at Exhibition Place, said he no longer wants any part of the events.

“I didn’t know what a rave party was,” Mr. Lastman said yesterday to excuse his backing of the protocol six months ago.

“I was definitely wrong when I went along with them,” he added. “With the police there, I didn’t think there’d be drugs.

“When people take this Ecstasy, they go nuts,” the mayor claimed.

The police chief told councillors his department has “applied the spirit of the protocol in policing these events,” but doesn’t have the manpower to adequately supervise dances that can attract more than 7,000 people.

But Sandra Bussin said the Safe Rave Protocol is a new policy that has only been in place for a few supervised parties this year.

“You haven’t given it time,” she told the police chief.

But the mayor said by the time Chief Fantino presents his report in August,”he’ll show you what a rave party really is.”