THE POLITICS OF DANCING

Gardaí in the West of Ireland have been using their new powers under the Combating the Misuse of Drugs Act to harass dance fans and seize musical and sound equipment, Hot Press has learned.

Over the last year, a number of independent club nights and dance parties have been raided and closed down amidst spurious allegations of drug use or drug dealing.

The situation has worsened considerably in recent months. Sound equipment, instruments and even records have been seized, often resulting in a considerable loss of earnings for their owners, while they are also allegations of heavy handed intimidatory tactics being used indiscriminately.

Despite their efforts the Gardaí have made absolutely no significant drug seizures. What they have succeeded in doing, however, is in killing off a once-thriving dance music scene. “It’s a pretty awful comparison but, when it comes to rave or techno or whatever, this town is quite literally the real-life equivalent of the movie Footloose,” Paul Davy, one of the organisers of the ill-fated Galway Festival Of Dance Music told me with a heavy sigh, when I asked him his opinion of the local club scene. “Dance is practically illegal here. Anybody who tries to run an independent club night or a party – even a free one – is automatically accused of either being a drug dealer or of facilitating drug-dealing, then gets busted and closed down.”

For those of you who missed it, Footloose was a dire mid-’80s movie starring Kevin Bacon and Lori Singer, a laughably predictable teen flick about a small mid-west American town where rock ’n’ roll has been banned as an evil and corrupting influence on the local youths. Sad and all as it sounds, the analogy with Galway is perfect – and nobody knows this better than the person who made it.

In the late summer of 1997, a small group of local DJ’s and enthusiasts – Paul Davy included – pooled their resources and attempted to organise a dance music weekend in Galway. Venues and equipment were hired, big-name acts like Fabio, Blue Peter and Mickey Finn were booked, and posters, fliers and tickets were printed up.

“What we were attempting to do was to put on a weekend of really good dance and techno that wasn’t underground,” Davy explains. “We were doing it on a licensed, insured and secure premises. Everything was completely above board and we went out of our way to accommodate everybody and do it in the most professional way possible.”

The organisers even went so far as to contact the local police for general advice on how to keep things running smoothly and minimise the possibilities of any trouble or drug casualties. Unfortunately, their accommodatory ploy backfired. Badly.

“About 25 uniformed cops showed up on the first night,” Davy recalls. “Half of them stayed outside the venue and searched people on the way in. The rest – along with some plainclothes drug squad officers – stayed inside the venue throughout the night, routinely searching and harrassing people. They even strip-searched one guy in the ladies’ toilets. It was a nightmare! Even just having uniformed cops at a dance club just seemed so . . . alien.”

The heavy police presence was maintained throughout the weekend “completely ruining the vibe we were trying to create and scared the crowds away,” according to Davy. “There were a few minor busts for possession of personal amounts of cannabis and ecstasy but nothing more. Despite this, when the weekend ended, the management of the Black Box venue informed the organisers that their business was no longer welcome there. A similar (pre-booked) night scheduled for the following month was cancelled. The organisers lost their shirts. After all, zero tolerance = zero profit.

Galway is a town that tirelessly promotes an image of itself as a great place to go for the craic. Unfortunately, if its short-lived Festival of Dance Music proved anything, it’s that if your idea of good craic extends beyond touristy trad-sessions in packed pubs or crap discos in cheesy nightclubs, the City of the Tribes very quickly becomes the City of the Bad Vibes.

Welcome to Galway. Now turn out your pockets, face the wall and spread your legs . . .

Coincidentally, Footloose was being screened by RTE on the evening of Saturday, May 30th, the night the music died (temporarily, at least) for yet another group of Galway dance enthusiasts. Huppah Systemedia is a loose grouping of DJs, alternative musicians and artists, who hire out sound systems and marquees and, occasionally, throw free dance parties on the back of their profits. Their parties usually attract crowds of between 500 and 1,500 and can go on for anything up to 72 hours. There’s no admission charged, just a contributions bucket at the door of the marquee. Any money collected goes towards the cost of hiring generators etc.

Huppah events are generally extremely well organised and trouble-free occasions, mainly because the remoteness and natural beauty of their chosen locations tend to have a calming effect on their crowds. Their May Day party at Loch Graney in Co. Clare the previous month even earned the organisers highly positive headlines in the Clare Champion, which praised Huppah both for running a brilliant party and for having the good grace to completely clean up the area before they departed. (Leaving their locations as they found them is a major part of Huppah policy).

Their chosen location for the May 30th party was Dunloughan Beach near Ballyconneely, a tiny village about eight miles from Clifden. The beach is about as remote as it gets in Connemara, with nearly two miles of sand dunes between it and the nearest occupied house. The Huppah team arrived there at about 6pm on the Saturday evening and began setting up their sound system and marquee. Four hours later the band who were due to open the party were just beginning their soundcheck when a force of 25 uniformed Gardaí arrived and informed them that, even though it was on common ground, the gathering was illegal (around 200 people had already arrived at that stage) and they would have to leave the beach.

“They then informed us that they were confiscating the equipment under the Combating the Misuse of Drugs Act,” a Huppah spokesman told me. “However, when we agreed to take the musical equipment away from the beach they guaranteed they would not then confiscate anything. We then proceeded to load the equipment back into the van and make preparations to leave.”

Unfortunately, things went badly wrong, according to the organisers, when three Gardaí, who had just arrived on the scene and were unaware of the agreement, barged through the crowd and attempted to seize the generator. One of the partygoers sat on the generator in peaceful protest and was forcibly removed. When his girlfriend attempted to intervene, she was also allegedly manhandled. The Guards eventually managed to unplug the generator, thereby plunging the entire beach into darkness. Minor chaos ensued – a small number of aggrieved partygoers threw sand at the officers and rocks at their squad cars. Unable to contain the situation they themselves had created, the police hurriedly withdrew.

“At that point we figured they were about as pissed off with us as they were ever gonna be,” the Huppah spokesman told me, “so we decided we might as well have the party anyway.” The party continued peacefully throughout the night (the crowd eventually swelled to around 750) and didn’t end until 2pm the following afternoon. Afterwards all litter and evidence of the party was removed and the beach was left as it had been found.

The police hadn’t gone away however. At 5.30pm on Sunday evening, about 15 vehicles were stopped by an enormous police road blockade five miles outside Galway. According to the Huppah crew, Guards screamed, “It’s payback time!” as men, women and children were aggressively forced from their vehicles and searched.

Seamus O’Donnell, a 28-year-old partygoer, was a passenger in one of the cars that was stopped.

“I was actually asleep in the back of the car when the Guards pulled us over,” he recalls. “I was woken up by a plainclothes detective who literally reefed me out of the back seat and threw me up against the back of the car. I didn’t know what had hit me. It was like waking up to a living nightmare or something. I didn’t really have time to think about what was happening – I was just slammed up against the back of the car, kneed in the back, prodded and sworn at. The guy wasn’t really shouting, he was more kind of muttering things like ‘ye little fucker’ and curses like that. I was still stunned and half asleep and basically in shock, I guess. It took me a while to realise that they’d actually stopped all of the vans and cars, and they were searching everybody. I can remember hearing Sue – the girl in the front of the car – screaming. It turned out that she’d been pulled out by her hair. They didn’t hit me that hard really. I didn’t have any bruises afterwards. It was more the shock of being pulled out of the car while I was still asleep. If they’d tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to step out then I would have. The whole thing was completely over the top and heavy-handed. I mean, I hadn’t broken any laws. They had no right to treat me like that.”

Following a prolonged search – during which no significant quantities of drugs were found – three of the vans containing the marquee and thousands of pounds worth of sound equipment were confiscated under the Misuse of Drugs Act. No inventories or receipts were issued.

One DJ attempted to retrieve his record box from the Gardaí, pointing out that they’d searched it and had found nothing but records inside. “If there’s no music, there’s no party,” said an officer smugly.

To date, nobody has been arrested or charged in connection with these events and Huppah’s equipment is still being held by the Gardaí, resulting in a considerable loss of earnings from their sound, light and marquee hire business. The band and DJ’s have also lost their equipment and cannot work as a result. The entire Garda operation – 25 officers on overtime – yielded just a handful of ten-spots of cannabis and a couple of ecstasy pills, probably the same amount they’d seize if they raided any city-centre pub or club.

This didn’t stop the media blowing it out of all proportion however. A lurid front page report in the Connacht Tribune (“700-Strong Mob At Beach Rave Force Garda Retreat”) was quickly picked up on by the tabloids, who wrote that the “rave” had been organised by a multi-million-pound drug gang, anxious to deplete their ecstasy mountain. A Garda source was quoted as saying: “They made the mistake of importing far too much and are now seeking ways of shifting the drugs – and they appear to have decided that rave parties are a good outlet.”

“It’s almost funny,” responds a Huppah spokesperson. “If they didn’t still have our equipment we’d be rolling in the aisles.”

Frank Ryder, a 33-year-old Galway-based musician, had loaned a number of items of sound equipment to Huppah. “I went to the police station the following day and asked them to return my equipment,” he says. “They told me that until their investigations were complete, I couldn’t have it back. They didn’t give me an inventory so I gave them a list of all of the items belonging to me. The only thing is, I was at home in bed on the night of the party so, if they are going to bring charges against anybody, I don’t really see what it has to do with me. I mean, they’ve had my equipment for two months now! We’re in the middle of the Arts Festival at the moment and I’ve had numerous calls from people looking to hire sound equipment. I’m losing a fortune. It’s a completely ridiculous situation.”

The matter is currently in the hands of Ryder’s solicitor.

Supt. Mick Curley of the Clifden Gardaí – the officer who led the bust – has confirmed to Hot Press that drugs were the reason they attempted to stop the party (or “rave” as he insisted on calling it). “We had a very strong suspicion that drugs were being sold and used at the rave,” he said. “We certainly will not tolerate this sort of activity in this part of the country.”

When asked was this policy the result of a directive from on high, the Supt replied: “No, it’s down to individual Gardaí to decide how to deal with such situations. We have these new powers to seize equipment under the Misuse of Drugs Act and we won’t hesitate to use them.”

Did the Supt not feel that the entire operation had been a wasted effort?

“No, not at all,” he replied. “If we have a suspicion that drugs are being used or sold at any event then we’ll do everything within our powers to stop that event.”

However, the Supt also confirmed that very few drugs had been seized and that, pending their inquiry, most of Huppah’s equipment would probably be returned “in due course”. He also denied that his officers had been in any way heavy-handed during their search of vehicles.

At the end of Footloose, the town elders realise that rock ’n’ roll isn’t such a bad thing after all, admit that they’ve over-reacted and finally let the kids pump up the volume. Unfortunately, Galway’s a long, long way from Hollywood. Five years ago, the city was home to a thriving dance scene, with clubs like Wiped and Sex Kitchen packed out every weekend. Police pressure and drug hysteria eventually forced them to close. Having been forced out of legitimate venues, dance culture has now been driven underground, to woods and bogs and beaches. The repression won’t ever stop the dance. It will, however, cost the taxpayer a fortune.

And it’s not just happening in Galway. Over the last few weeks, dance parties in Tipperary and West Cork have been raided in a similarly heavy-handed fashion (again, equipment was seized but no significant drug seizures were made). And nor is it only dance music that’s being repressed. The same bookburning mentality seems to apply to all forms of musical entertainment in the west. A number of nightclubs are being forced to turn on their lights and serve meals for lengthy periods each night. Many venues cannot get a late-night drinks licence on Saturdays – undoubtedly their busiest night and also, for many people, the only night of the week when they can let their hair down and drink and dance their office blues away.

Even large-scale events are being threatened. The recent Bud Thud dance music weekend (dance music events with corporate sponsorship seem to be tolerated, albeit reluctantly) suffered from a heavy police presence and a lights on / no smoking policy in the larger venues. A Chemical Brothers gig just isn’t the same when you’re in a brightly lit hall, surrounded by policemen and not even allowed to smoke a cigarette.

With all of their new powers under the Combating the Misuse of Drugs Act, the Gardaí may have the rights to attempt to deny people a good night’s entertainment, whether it be in a live venue, a nightclub or a beach party.

The question that needs to be asked however, is do they have the right?