Hollywood Nights: Same Decadence, but Now with More Snooki Clones! (Also, Gun Violence is Back!). A Nightranger Report

Lina Lecaro

Kress go-go gal backs it up.

The punk riot on the Sunset Strip (not even the most hardcore line-up we've seen at Key Club) and this past Friday, a shooting inside Kress nightclub. Talk about a disco bloodbath. And as (bad?) luck would have it, Nightranger was there.

Ok, we weren't actually inside the club, but across the street for the much anticipated debut of Eden (formerly Opera), the newest super-club from Syndicate Group (Tony Daly and David Judaken, the guys behind My House, My Studio and a bunch of velvet roped dens before that).

Arriving late is usually not about being fashionable for this intrepid nightlife reporter, it's about catching the full froth of the party, when everybody's hammered and, well, everybody's there. And yeah, we're usually lucky enough to be on some sort of VIP list which allows us to bypass the weekend warrior masses.

We expected a circus but something told us there was more going on when the fleet of cop cars clogged Schrader Blvd. Even so, we found a parking space right in front of the club and took it. Big mistake.

As we attempted (unsuccessfully, this time) to finagle our way inside the capacity club we saw our car get flanked by the fuzz and soon learned of the gunning of a security guard that occurred only moments prior across the street.

Being stuck on the street for about an hour as the LAPD conducted their investigation with a sea of drunk Snookie lookalikes (what is it with Hollywood club girls and sausage-tight Lycra mini-dresses right now?) and Eurotrashtastic dudes in cubic zirconia "bling," was a surreal and only slightly entertaining experience. The parking lot that serviced both clubs was closed off, which meant that the street was flooded with mobs of angry car-less clubbers spreading rumors ("a guy got shot dead on the dance floor!"), cops and random celebs leaving the safe confines of Eden. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kyle Richards, who was with her nieces Paris and Nicky inside most the night tweeted, "Shooting outside the club. NOT a good sign! This is NOT very LA. :/ cops won't let us get r car." Well not your gated bubble of L.A., beeyotch. Ok, maybe not ours either.

As for Eden, we apparently missed partying with not only The Hiltons, but also Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens who reunited inside the swanky new Adam & Eve-ish environs.