Coliseum agrees to rave moratorium

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum officials have agreed to a call by Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a member of the facility’s governing body, to impose a moratorium on future “raves” following the drug overdose death of a 15-year-old girl at a weekend event. A second girl remains hospitalized in critical condition.

Billed as the largest rave in North America, the Electric Daisy Carnival drew an estimated 185,000 participants. Roughly 120 concertgoers were taken to local hospitals for treatment, most of them for drug overdoses, intoxication, and related injuries.

Following a decision by Coliseum Commission President Barry Sanders to convene a special meeting on the matter, Yaroslavsky wrote to him proposing a moratorium on renting the historic facility “to any individual or company that promotes raves.”

“The general public deserves to be assured that when the Coliseum’s tenants stage an event, the health and safety of the promoter’s patrons are protected,” Yaroslavsky wrote. “Clearly, there was a breakdown at the Electric Daisy Carnival which put the public at risk.”

Sanders informed Yaroslavsky that he agreed with the proposal and planned to support it. In the meantime, he said he has ordered Coliseum management to immediately observe such a moratorium before the upcoming meeting, scheduled for July 16.

In recent decades, raves evolved from their underground origins as all-night electronic music dance events held in downtown lofts, surreptitiously promoted largely by flyers and word-of-mouth, into large-scale, widely advertised and highly commercialized events. Often used during these raves is the drug Ecstasy, or MDMA,  an illegal synthetic methamphetamine and hallucinogen.

A recent article in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of the Centers for Disease Control examined the aftermath of a 2009 New Year’s Eve rave at the Coliseum, which sent 18 patients, aged 16-34, to local emergency rooms for Ecstasy overdoses. Ten of the patients had also been drinking, five had used other drugs, and three required hospitalization.

Posted 6/30/10