ABC and 1015
Crackdown on ecstasy in clubs transfers the burden of an unwinnable war on drugs to business owners

By Corbett Miller

Just as San Francisco's nightclub scene was getting a breath of fresh air, with the creation of the Entertainment Commission taking the entertainment permitting process out of the hands of the San Francisco Police Department, state and federal authorities are stepping in and attempting to put an end to the fun.

In the past six months the local office of the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) has been flooding South of Market nightclubs and bars with investigators in an effort to revitalize the war on drugs, especially ecstasy.

"They've been hitting SoMa awfully hard, creating a level of despair," said Jim Meko, chair of the South of Market Leadership Council and a neighborhood appointee to the Entertainment Commission.

Meko, who's been active in the council for years, said the ABC has every right to look into drug violations at places that sell liquor, but he questions the intense interest in SoMa. "The extra attention focused on one given area raises the question above a simple investigation."

Most recently, 1015 Folsom, one of San Francisco's largest late-night dance clubs, was the focus of a five-month ABC investigation that yielded 11 alleged ecstasy sales at the club. The ABC used those sales – as well as the club's employment of on-site Emergency Medical Technicians, free bottled water, and "cool-down room" – as evidence that management condones drug use and has moved to revoke 1015's liquor license.

The alleged drug sales were made by patrons and music promoters, not club employees, and the EMTs, free water, and cool-down room are harm-reduction measures mandated by the courts and local authorities more than three years ago. Yet the ABC claims 1015's owner, Ira Sandler, "knew or should have known, of the extensive use of drugs inside the club" according to ABC spokesperson Carl DeWing.

Gary Kruger, a doorman at local nightclubs since 1986 who is currently working at the Endup, said the actions taken against 1015 Folsom have had a chilling effect on the rest of the nightclubs in the area. "I'm afraid the Endup is next," Kruger said with dismay. "Clubs employ a lot of people. This is how I pay my rent, feed my kids."

Kruger also pointed out the strict security 1015 Folsom is known for. "They've got the most stringent security in town. At what point does the standard or reasonable effort max out?"

John Wood, an attorney and member of the San Francisco Late Night Coalition's Legal Action Committee, said ABC's actions are a direct trickle-down effect of the federal government's expanding drug war bureaucracy. "The strategy of the drug war has failed, so now the feds expect club owners to do what they can't," Wood said, referring to ending all use of illegal drugs.

Wood could be on to something. On April 30, Congress passed the Illicit Drug Non-Proliferation Act, a rider tagged onto the Amber Alert bill. The new legislation, which failed to pass last year as the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act, holds club owners and event promoters accountable for drugs used and sold at their events.