Raves Might be Reined in Under Fiona Ma's Bill, Which Just Passed The California Legislature

By Dennis Romero Fri., Sep. 9 2011 at 11:16 AM

Fiona.

The same day that the family of a teenager who died of an ecstasy overdose after attending an L.A. rave filed suit against public officials, San Francisco state assemblywoman Fiona Ma saw her raves-safety bill pass the legislature. It just needs Gov. Jerry Brown's signature to go into law.

Once called the Anti Raves Act of 2011, Ma's bill was heavily watered down following outcry from promoters, lobbyists and the rave community. It originally sought to ban raves like Electric Daisy Carnival, which the late Sasha Rodriguez attended before dying, from taking place at publicly run venues like the L.A. Coliseum and Sports Arena.

Now, not so much:

The renamed Raves Safety Act would now require public officials to undertake a "threat assessment" of events planned for more than 10,000 people at state-run facilities.

If officials think there could be "loss of life or harm to the participants" they would have to implement an "event action plan" addressing security, safety, medical personnel and age restrictions.

Which is pretty much what happens now. Brown has until Oct. 9 to sign this.

So is Ma running away from cracking down on raves with her tail between her legs? Sure seems like it. But this bill slid easily down the throat of Sacramento, like a ecstasy tablet for a Saturday night raver.

Just sayin.'

Ma:

California needs to better monitor and control events occurring on State properties. Casualties can be prevented and I've seen what works. AB 74 is intended to prevent the loss of life and make safety a top priority at events on state property.

Sometimes they say you're tripping your face off when you're on ecstasy. Ma just saved face, but this bill doesn't really seem to do much at all.

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]

Tags:

AB 74, Anti Raves Act, California Assembly, ecstasy, EDC, Fiona Ma, raves, Raves Safety Act, Sasha Rodriguez, Senate

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Fan Of Actual Journalism

The series of articles that Dennis Romero has written about raves in general exhibit such a clear disdain for their subject matter that I don't really understand why they aren't Op Ed articles. It's so blatantly clear that he thinks raves should be banned, why even bother passing this off as "news"?

I thought the point of objective journalism was to present the facts to the readers and let us decide how we feel about them; these articles tell us exactly what conclusions we should be drawing without a single shred of nuance. In Mr. Romero's view, anyone defending these raves is either a) on drugs or b) out to make money. Sound about right? Wow, I sure am glad that it's all that simple, otherwise I might have to actually think about this!

The counter-argument (not that it would matter to Mr. Romero) is that drugs are an inseparable part of music culture and that ecstasy is unfairly singled out as somehow worse than the rest - it's really not. If you asked a police officer whether he would rather subdue someone who was drunk or someone "rolling their face off", which do you think they would pick? Alcohol causes (by far) more deaths and more emergency room visits than ecstasy does, so I wonder what connections Mr. Romero could make between its continued legality and any possible "money to be made"? When do I get to see a meaty piece of shock-and-horror journalism about that?

And to Julian: yes, we ravers are indeed a community, which is something you would not be THE LEAST BIT surprised to read if you knew even a single truth about us and our culture. If you did decide to go raving, you'd probably sound a lot less jaded and cynical. As a million different trance classics probably said, "It's never too late...."

www.Playhardstyle.com

I'm from Australia so my input may be irrelevant to you but people need to understand that a ravers life can be no different to anyone else's, I work full time, study part time, have a faience, house and pet dog, we are always doing normal things but we love to get away once a month to a big... BIG rave. The drugs are the problem not the events. Put you bills and your government money into fixing the drug problem not ruining our events because the event didn't kill Sasha.

Julian

Even "ravers" are a "community" now? Do they have little chimneys with smoke wafting up, a town crier, and weekly meetings? You lefties and your inane word bullshi-t always make me shake my head.