Sometime this week, the Toronto city council will finally come to a decision regarding raves being held on city property. No matter what they decide, raves will still go down each and every weekend. They'll just move further underground, away from the Better Living Centre and back into basements and warehouses. Every Queen Street store will carry dozens of rave flyers and promoters will continue bust their asses to promote their parties no matter what a bunch of politicians have to say about it. If all this is true, then why should we care about the city council vote? The answer, Watson, is PRECISELY. Why should we care? When a DJ is spinning in the city, and you really want to hear that person, WHO CARES if it's on city property or in a promoter's backyard? Similarly, if a band I love plays in town, if I want to see them badly enough, the concert could be anywhere from Sneaky Dee's to Skydome -- I couldn't really care less.
The issue is drugs. Ravers want to do them. At the same time, they want raves to be safe. This requires responsible event security, which is assured on city property but a dicey issue on private property. However, a rave is only as safe as it's ravers. If there were no drugs present, then the need for security would not be as stringent and first aid concerns would also be at a minimum. With drugs comes the preventative babysitting -- from the security to search for them to the first aid personnel to care for the casualties. Thus, the push to continue to hold raves on city properly is (at least partly) based, albeit indirectly, on the want to have the city chaperone the parties, rather than the promoters. Then, if anybody dies from a drug overdose during a city-approved rave, guess who gets the blame? That's right, the net effect is a transfer of blame from the ravers and promoters to the city of Toronto.
I've read countless newspaper comments from people in the scene that read "Kids come to raves for the music, they don't come for the drugs. Raves are safe, and drugs are not widely used". But if this were true, then the impending city council vote would be anti-climatic -- a minor issue. But it is not, is it?
