The Anti-Dance Bylaw History
1991-2000:
Events go barely noticed. Lots of great music, bands, DJ's and events.April 2000:
In April 2000, several articles appeared in the illustrious Calgary Sun by Rick Bell, regarding raves and all night dance events/concerts. These were centered around complaints of tertiary noise and parking problems near Rollerland Roller Rink. Unfortunately, Rick Bell never actually set foot into such an event until a month later. So much for decent journalism. His articles were extremely inaccurate and really just meant to scare the heck out of anyone that really didn't have a clue as to what was what (aka City Hall and the general public). In April 17, 2000, Rick Bell from the Calgary Sun penned an article on Raves at Rollerland that caused quite a commotion [article to follow soon]. His follow up article Calgary Sun April 20, 2000 was just as nasty [note the Alderman's comments]. His articles basically belittled ravers and claimed everyone was "high at all night dance-a-thons". Calgary Sun - April 2000 - Rick Bell - Plan Nothing To Rave About So now we have everyone in the media reporting every incident involving raves shy of a broken toe nail. Many equated raves with drugs and blamed all of society's ills on drugs and by association, raves.
What many people didn't know was that while a dance or club might be a great place to be while on Ecstasy, most people tried drugs first time in much more private venues such as a weekend house party. Drugs scare the heck out of any parent, and you can always find 1 out of 300 hundred parents having had to pick up their offspring when they ended up somewhere they shouldn't have been while under the influence of alcohol or a controlled substance. If you ask the kids, they will usually tell you that drugs are often cheaper and more readily available at schools than anywhere else.
May 2000:
To further the media feeding frenzy: the media’s presentation of a ‘Rave Stabbing’ at Firepark Sports Plex on May 27, 2000. The stabbing happened after the Rave had ended in the parking lot when a Caucasian and Asian male entered into an altercation. This same scenario is played out at bars and nightclubs across North America every week, yet the media barely give it a second thought. The media has clearly done a real number on rave style events all in the efforts of sensationalism (trying to sell more news).
Not to belabor the point (well, yes actually) -- on Oct 8, 2001, the local news reported two separate stabbings, one outside of a restaurant and one outside of a night club (one resulting in a death). They were not headlined as a 'Restaurant Stabbing' and a 'Night Club Stabbing'. The media has been very careless and insensitive in their headlines with regards to dance culture.
At this point, Raves are all things evil and City Council is under the impression that stomping out dance parties will eradicate the scourge of controlled substances from our fair city. [As if!] Generally, people always fear what they do not understand.
June 2000:
Calgary City Council mails out a 'Ravefacts pamphlet' in consumers Enmax power bills that is a verbatim of the www.ravefacts.com website [now defunct, thanks to our numerous complaints]. This pamphlet is full of numerous errors and misinformation designed to scare your average Calgarian parent into a myocardial infarction if they have kids that like to dance and celebrate all night! This mail out by City Hall was a precursor of an ultimate agenda: Prohibition under the guise of control. This softened the ground and set the stage nicely for what was to follow.In June 2000, there were meetings held to 'feign' a public consultation of all the stake holders involved and to 'adopt' recommendations made by these groups. Obviously, the recommendations were not followed very closely and certain members of Calgary City Council had a different agenda in mind.
July 2000:
Bylaw 34M2000 became law and slowly starting killing a vibrant part of our culture.
This scare-tactic website (owned by the City) appeared at almost the same time as the bylaw was passed:
[ At the time, the EMS information was linked directly to the ravefacts site and the City of Calgary licensing e-mail. It is highly suspicious. There was definitely some coordination going on here. ]
Note the capricious use of such terms as ‘Rave Drugs’ / ‘Club Drugs’. On the www.ravefacts.com site, it originally debuted with a picture of a needle beside the Rave Drugs menu option. It was changed to capsules when a number of people complained at the obvious scare tactic. There is no such thing as a ‘Rave Drug’. For example, Ecstasy was only made illegal in 1985, and has been around since 1912 when Merck Pharmaceuticals first synthesized it. [Ecstasy Timeline] Ecstasy has even been used on rape victims to help them feel empathy once again. Many kids say it’s much easier to purchase Ecstasy at school than it is at an event or club, does that make it a ‘School Drug’? Of course, trying out drugs is extremely risky at best (if not plain stupid), but we are not here to preach.
April 2001:
City Council promised to review the bylaw in April 2001, but delays the review until September 2001. Many people in the dance community were anxiously awaiting the review so amendments could finally be made.
July 2001:
City Council decides to suspend a review until July 2002. All hope fades until the election is announced.
Jan 2002:
Due to the unreasonable cost of compliance and unnecesary paperwork, many event organizers are unable to afford to do events. Ticket prices have gone as high as $60-$70 in order to meet the City's regulations. This has put events past the reach of the dance goer.
April 2002:
City Council indicates that it intends to make ammendments to the bylaw in June 2002. Some amendments will even make it worse. We are waiting to see what they intend.
C.O.R.E.:
In Spring of 2000, a group known as C.O.R.E. got together to fight city hall as a group. C.O.R.E. was successful in getting an under 249 person event exemption from the Anti-Dance Bylaw. They deserve a mention here for their tireless work. City Council has basically ignored C.O.R.E. since that time (in fact they basically ignored everyone regarding this bylaw). C.O.R.E. played by City Hall's rules and as such, they have been unsuccessful in getting amendments made to the bylaw. This is now a political battle and it has to be won in a political arena.