What is happening in US clubs?

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Honestly it was a hotbed of slug sin. There were slugs in feathered head-dresses dancing, and slugs drinking absinthe and being letchy, slugs doing little dance of the seven veils strip shows, slugs with cigars in little fedoras, slugs tucking slug money into the slug garter belts of other slugs.

It was either salt, or finding decent God-fearing slugs to come and preach at them.

-- Anna (Fieldingann...), September 4th, 2002 7:08 PM.

hell there's clubs in sheffield which open at midday on sunday.
-- Ed, March 9th, 2003. (later)

i knew that would be misintrepeted... i just remember in madrid we didn't go out until after midnight and some clubs wouldn't open until 6-8am on sunday... lousy attempt at humor, i know.

Often at clubs there is an element of drug use and crime flowing throughout the crowd. People sometimes go to clubs to score drugs such as Ecstasy, cocaine or acid, and dealers of these substances are often on hand to provide them what they want. Sometimes fights break out and blood is spilt, usually among young men, though no one can ever remember why afterwards.

Getting into a club can be very difficult or very easy. Some clubs are 'all-ages' and allow anyone inside, providing that they can show a form of government identification that proves their legal status re: consumption of alcohol. Drinking is a very important part of the US club experience and it is considered impossible to run a successful club without selling beer at inflated prices to the crowd. This requires a liquor license from the local government, which may threaten to repeal it if the club is found in violation of any number of laws including fire safety regulations, underage drinking, smoking and drug statutes. As a result of this, club owners may enforce tougher door policies to prevent certain elements of society from entering. Clubs may also enforce a 'dress code' of sorts in order to make the experience more fancy for everyone inside.

US clubs have calmed down a great deal since the days of dropping amyls into the ventilator at Studio 54; however, they remain a vibrant and sometimes dangerous world of fun and risk for young and old alike across this wonderful country.

There was a similar deathtrap incident at a night club ("social club") in Harlem a few years ago where a bunch of people were horribly trambled after a fire. The common element is the lack of enforcement of the fire code and cabaret licenses. Clearly, the prevention would be to enforce cabaret licensing more strictly as has happened nearly to a fault under Guiliani in New York but that too has its detractors. When clubs are licensed, they search at the door for things like pepper spray, metal, magic markers, almost anything, but these underground clubs have no fear of losing their license. The downside is having the Chicago Police all up in your shizznitt all the time (as you may know, Chicago has lots of problems), but the fact that this happened in the near South Side is why it's getting international press. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this type of tragedy is underreported.

What do you think of the cricket riot fatalities in India and can they be prevented in the future?

crash worship

guiliani's administration revived the idea of the cabaret liscence. the liscence permits dancing (right?) in clubs, and the law was written in the early 20th century, and, if i remember correctly, there was a racist motivation for it.

also, a number of large clubs have been shut down, most notably twilo and buzz here in DC. i think drugs were an issue in both closures, and also the fact that twilo was using a private ambulance firm.

most of the above is not directly related to the tragedies that have recently occured, but i wonder if any of these events could have been prevented if the relationship between club owners and the police wasnt so antagonistic?

The RI event happened in a wood structure that allegedly was using flammable material for soundproofing. If the latter is proven the owners are going to be hit with some serious lawsuits.

If I correctly remember articles about the Chicago incident, the owner didn't have a license to run a club on the second floor and the police previously had tried to bust the owner for letting in too many people relative to the number of exits. Although the stampede sure didn't help.

when was the last time stereolab or cul de sac had pyro on stage ya know??

Last week Skeleton Key's second percussionist whipped out a buzzsaw and applied it to one of his pieces of junk; sparks flew but didn't catch anything. I wonder what would have happened if the local police patrol had been there at the time. (The Black Cat has been making a point of cooperating with the local police [undoubtedly because the club wants to increase their legal permitted capacity]. Whenever I go there at least once during the night I see a uniformed policeman checking out the place.)