Have You Ever Been Had In Clubland?

THE NATIONAL press may have found some new bjte noires to lavish their column inches on but, as far as the Garda Siochana are concerned, dance music is still the number one corrupter of the nation-s youth.
That-s become abundantly clear over the past 12 months as fully licensed club nights in Ballina, Castlebar, Clonmel, Galway, Limerick, Moate, Glenties, Navan and Waterford have all come in for unwelcome attention from the boys in blue. And just about every other colour you can think of - the powers-that-be increasingly turning to plain-clothes officers to get collars and, indeed, bottoms felt.
Needless to say, conspiracy theories abound with one of the most popular depicting the Gardam as stealing a march on the politicians by introducing a surrogate Criminal Justice Bill. That, however, suggests a cohesion of policy and resources that simply doesn-t exist in the police-s handling of the drugs issue here.
For the real whys and wherefores, you-re better off looking at Hot Press- November 1995 interview with the then acting head of the National Drug Unit, Superintendent John McGroarty. In it, he observed that, -we-re into the business of community policing in a big way on this island now. And we have to maintain faith with communities. Communities are very concerned about what-s going on on their doorsteps in terms of drug dealing on the street and we have to respond to that very vigorously. Some of the time it-s youngsters, maybe local youngsters who are involved in that, but nevertheless we have to be seen to be active there and we have to be seen to make arrests, searches and seizures.-
Let-s just look at that last line again - we have to be seen to make arrests, searches and seizures. No wonder then that there are those who perceive the upsurge in Garda activity as having more to do with public relations than crime busting.
That-s certainly the view of Hot Press and Radio Ireland-s Mark Kavanagh who has been dodging the flak on the dance frontline since the late '80s.
-For the Gardam and the Drug Squad to suggest to the Irish people that stopping a dance club running in a town is going to decrease the amount of drug-taking there is nothing short of a lie,- he charges. -Their actions in rural areas this summer prove that they still don-t know what they-re doing. They are merely conning the taxpayer with ridiculous PR exercises.-
Kavanagh goes on to list three separate incidents which he feels highlight the Gardam-s misplaced priorities.
-A promoter did a gig with me at Barry-s Hotel in Clonmel which was a 700-plus full house,- he resumes. -There was no heavy drugs vibe yet when it came to the second week, they went to the owner and said 'pull it or else-. They just didn-t want it on their patch. In Castlebar, a guy called Brian Kiernan was running a small Sunday night club at the Travellers- Friend and 15 undercover drugs squad came up and started busting people before they-d even gone in.
-More over the top still was the cops turning up at the Theatre Royal in Limerick when Laurent Garnier was playing there and telling the promoter bloke from the University that they-d be shut down if they let non-students in. They had no legal right, of course, to do that but it didn-t stop them making the threat.-
Indeed, that particular night ended in angry scenes as the Gardam instructed the Royal to turn away over 300 people including, bafflingly, a bus-load of 30 third-levellers from Cork who were able to produce full I.D.
-The line that invariably gets trotted out by the Guards in Limerick is, 'we can-t stop you running gigs but we can have a word with the judge when your licence comes up for renewal-,- alleges a local DJ. -As arguments go, it-s pretty persuasive.-
While preferring not to talk about Castlebar, Brian Kiernan says that in general, -the cops down the country don-t know what to do. Their attitude is that if you stop the gig, you stop the drugs, which isn-t the case at all. If there are no clubs, kids are going to go home, whack the ghettoblaster up and drop their yokes there. I know that, you know that and, actually, I-m sure they know that.
-The other thing,- he continues, -is that in shutting places down, the Gardam are taking people-s livelihoods away. They-re the ones with the problem yet it-s us who-s suffering.-
Further examples are not hard to come by. Last November, 25 plain-clothes and uniformed officers raided the Psychociili night at the Well Hotel in Mote, County Westmeath and charged promoter Frasier Cant with obstructing the Gardam under the Misuse of Drugs Act. There was no subsequent conviction.
Later the same month, The Limelight Club in Glenties, Co. Donegal pulled a Scooter gig following a visit from the local Superintendent. The Northern promotions company who-d booked them in lost over #3,000 as a result.
A few weeks ago, 19 officers gatecrashed the Galway Dance Festival at the Town Hall Theatre-s Black Box annex. Venue owner Padraig Breathnach - a man more used to dealing with thespians than clubbers - was moved to comment, -why are we always stopping our young fellows? Why make it so impossible for them to get something moving? There was no drug-dealing or fighting there, no scraps or bottles broken. It was a most civilised crowd and the vibe was very good.-
The Gardam pointed to the 20 drug related arrests they made but then apparently admitted to promoter Stephen Lydon that that-s the tally they-d expect if they raided any club on a Saturday night - dance or otherwise.
-The bottom line is they don-t want dance music in Galway and if they have to hassle venues and clubbers to achieve that, so be it,- Lydon says. -After all this, it-s highly unlikely that the Black Box will have us back and the only other option, the Leisureland, has been told in no uncertain terms that if they try to run dance events they-ll be stopped.-
Local clubbers won-t need reminding that being in Salthill, the Leisureland comes under the jurisdiction of Superintendent Jim Sugrue - an anti-drugs hardliner who has been accused of creating a climate in which most venues simply find it too much hassle to continue with dance.
While unavailable for comment this week, the Superintendent told the local press last year that, -Excessive consumption of alcohol and illegal drugs are the source of all problems on our streets. The most common defence in the Courts for unruly behaviour is that of intoxication. The Gardam have dealt with, and will continue to deal with, the problems on the streets.-
He denied -targeting- Vagabond-s, one of Salthill-s longest-running clubs, which closed last year after the owner was told that it was unlikely he-d get his dance licence renewed. The 27 staff who lost their jobs as a result later made it onto the front-page of the City Tribune when they picketed Salthill Garda station
With The Castle throwing in the towel at roughly the same time, the only dance club still running in the resort is Liquid.
-When I did the first of what was meant to be a series of gigs in the Leisureland,- reveals a nationally-known promoter who declines to be named, -I went to see Superintendent Sugrue to explain what was going to happen and he very kindly sent two or three officers along on the night to search people at the front door. I didn-t know the logistics of the venue but there-s a car park at the back which I decided to walk round and, lo and behold, there was a dealer selling to a queue of people. I immediately raced back and informed the Guards who ambled round in their own leisurely fashion to have a look and missed him.
-The point I-m making,- he stresses, -is that if they put as much effort into pursuing dealers as they do hassling clubbers, we wouldn-t have this drugs problem.-
Something of an overstatement, perhaps, but the complaint repeatedly being aired is that the Gardam have a poor record when it comes to liaising with promoters and defusing problems before they arise.
-The reaction you get when you go to them and say 'can we talk?- is one of total suspicion,- our source continues. -They think we-re doing it to make ourselves look good whereas in fact I don-t want drugs in my venues because, (A), I think they-re bloody dangerous and, (B), this is how I make my living and I know I-m going to have gigs pulled if there are Es floating about.
-I-ll tell you how crazy it is: I had a situation a couple of years ago where one of my doormen confiscated a lump of dope from somebody and I posted it to the Drugs Squad. A couple of days later, I got a call saying that technically I was guilty of supplying an illegal substance. Wanting clarification, I went to see the Superintendent at Harcourt Street and was basically told that whatever I-d done would-ve been wrong. If I-d taken the dope off them and not handed it over, I-d have been guilty of possession and if I-d hung onto this guy and called the cops, I could-ve been had up for assault. It-s a complete no win situation.-
Those sentiments are echoed by Stephen Lydon whose attempts at straight-talking with the Gardam have proved just as fruitless.
-I asked the officer we spoke to, 'as far as you-re concerned, how can we improve things?-, and he said, 'I-ll answer that question in court-. We want to do our gigs in Galway but if we can-t get something sorted, we-re going to have to go to Dublin.-
No one would-ve uttered such a heresy a couple of years ago but after giving customers at The Olympic Ballroom, Sides, Columbia Mills et al a hard time, the cops in the capital finally seem to have their policing of clubs about right.
-I think they see enough really serious crime to realise that some 18-year-old who may or may not have necked an E isn-t the enemy,- reflects Mark Kavanagh -If you raided every dance club in Dublin on a nightly basis for the next month, there-d still be exactly the same amount of drugs out there on the street. The sooner the Gardam in other parts of the country realise that and stop hassling people whose only crime is wanting to have a bit of a bop, the better.-