Unit 8 Party animals 3 While you read
Rave to the grave
A rave party nearly ended in tragedy last night,
when over a hundred people fell through the floor
of the fourth-floor flat they were dancing in and into the flat below.
Amazingly,no one was killed,
although seven people were taken to hospital suffering from shock.
The party was organised by a group called Tribal Spiral,
and was held in a deserted flat on ahousing estate in East London.
It is believed that have the extremely hight volume of the techno music being played
weakened the structure of the floor.
Bert Jones,aged 64,who lives in the third-floor flat below,said:
'I must admit,I hadn't really noticed the party going on.
I'm a bit hard of hearing and I didn't have my hearing aid in,
but I could feel the vibrations from somewhere.
I just thought it must be kids messing around upstairs somewhere.
Then,the next thing I knew,there was an almighty crash in the living room,
so I ran in and the place was full of dust and plaster and people screaming.
I just couldn't believe my eyes.I got the shock of my life,I can tell you.
Now I'm waiting for the council to send someone round to fix things.'
The incident follows a number of complaints about techno parties all over the capital
and public outcry about raves.
A recent tabloid headline screamed,
'SPACED OUT!11,000 YOUNGSTERS GO DRUG CRAZY AT BRITAIN'S BEGGEST EVER DANCE PARTY',
while the number of drug-related deaths at raves has risen dramatically over the last year.
All of this will undoubtedly lead to calls for tighter anti-rave laws.
The government is ready considering introducing a new law
which will help police crack down on unoficial gatherings of this kind.
They are proposing a bill which will allow police to break up any groups of more than twenty people
listening to 'music with rrepetitive beats'
and also intend to make club owners responsible
for any drugs being sold on their premises.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said,'Things are getting out of hand,
and ovciously what worries us the most is that where you have rave parties
and where you have drugs,you're bound to come up against organised crime.
We'd obviously appreciate any new law which gave us more powers to tackle this problem.'
David Goodyear,a Stepney ambulanceman,
claimed that many of the partygoers at the Tribal Spiral event
had failed to notice the floor had collapsed.
Most of the young people just carried on dancing
-a fact he put down to the mind-altering affects of Ecstasy
and other so-called 'dance drugs'.
However,there are signs that young people themselves
are already looking for alternatives to the rave scene.
One of the most successful new clubs to have opened this year is the Domino Club.
Here,young people sit around drinking cocktails whilst a D plays laid-back jazz.
There isn't much dancing-instead,
the club-goers play board games such as Scrabble and Monopoly.
Another club which has become very popular is The Big Chill,
which is held in a church called the Union Chapel.
Ironically,maybe young people today are closer to God
than the government and the police realise!