MooShiE
Bluelighter
I got goose bumps reading this article, Im not sure if anyone has posted it before but Id really like to share it with the Bluelight Community!! Sublime should be 100% supported! Im definitely taking my business there when I hit NSW.
References
"Water: Another Sublime innovation for quality clubbing", Australian Press.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/page.htm
Death on the dancefloor
Simon Page
Sublime Nightclub, The Basement, 244 Pitt Street, Sydney, Australia.
Phone no: +61-2 926 48 428. Email: [email protected]
Setting the scene
The message I would like to share is that to truly make a club as healthy as
possible you have to publicly own up to the fact that your clubs patrons are
going to take drugs. Then, and perhaps only then, can you put harm
minimisation practices in place in an open and up front fashion.
A great deal of money has been invested in Sublime nightclub so it was very
important to manage the drug issue properly otherwise the club would be
closed down due to the wider community’s lack of understanding and indeed
the fear of the whole recreational drug culture. Within the first six months
of trading in the second half of 1996, it was realised that it was useless
to simply pretend that the patrons did not take drugs.
The first initiative was to create a first aid room with full time staff,
trained to around nursing level and armed with automatic defibrillators.
Before that was in place, the police were approached to see whether they
would see the creation of a first aid room as condoning drug taking, but the
police were actually quite realistic. They described the drug situation in
society as a whole as a "runaway train". The police were therefore
supportive of the first aid initiative as a harm minimisation policy.
Unfortunately having realistic police does not stop them from having to
carry out the community’s expectations so the club still gets raided by drug
squad police in a heavy handed fashion.
The second initiative was to bottle our ‘Sublime’ water and using 500ml
bottles with a message printed on the label recommending how much water to
consume while at a dance party. Again the bottle and the message could have
been seen as condoning the taking of ecstasy but the very high usage of
ecstasy by patrons had to be faced and the main aim had to be keeping them
safe.
So far so good, but nothing could prepare the ground for what happened
around the time of the clubs third birthday on 16th July 1999, when a
clubber dropped dead on the dance floor. The front page of one of the
biggest selling newspapers in Australia the next morning cried: "Death on
the dance floor: clubs warned of lethal drug batch" and another Sunday
paper: "Killer drug on the street". They used great sensationalist terms:
‘the agony of ecstasy’, ‘Dad mourns special son’, ‘Night clubs dodge hard
questions’.
The death of Michael Overton is perhaps the highest profiled club death in
this city since Anna Wood, the sixteen year old who died near a rave in the
mid nineties. The media’s immediate reaction to both was the same hysterical
hyperbole that drugs were to blame, that the victims were caught up in the
dance of death. Allegedly last Sunday’s ‘Sun’ was slightly more restrained
than the recording which followed Anna’s death but when there is an alcohol
accident and dozens of heroin deaths each night, is this the sort of
sensationalised coverage that will help the situation? Few of you could have
got through last week without coming across some mention of the unfortunate
death at Sublime two Fridays ago. The loss of young life irrespective of the
conditions is a sad thing in anyone’s language. What continues to hurt this
situation is the irresponsible reporting of such issues, sure we all make
mistakes, get on the proverbial soap box as journalists and let the heart
rule the pen instead of remaining impartial, but when some of the nation’s
most high profile papers do not even get their facts straight over an
incident that could potentially have far reaching impacts, things are not
looking bright.
Even after all the genuine harm minimisation efforts that had been made,
after Michael Overton had died, Sydney’s politicians wanted to close the
club. No discussion, no questions, close the club. The club managed to keep
the doors open and decided there were two ways to go. One: get heavy with
the patrons, throw them out of the club if drug use or involvement was
suspected. This would probably mean the club closing anyway as the patrons
deserted. Or two: continue with even more harm minimisation measures.
The club continued facing up to the drug issue with the help of the Drug and
Alcohol Research Centre in New South Wales. A special room was designed and
built in the club by slightly increasing the club’s entry fee - quite
openly, not as a cynical exercise. Patrons were asked: "Would you prefer to
pay a slightly increased entry fee and get free water?" 88% voted that they
would do that. So now there is an area in the club separate from the chill
out area which is called the Water Park.
All the other nightclub owners thought this was crazy, it would put a hole
in the club’s financial bottom line but the gross takings had actually gone
up as the patrons had voted with their feet and said they were prepared to
support a club which does that. We advertised it: "H2O dollars: the best
things in life are free. Water is free in Sublime from next weekend. Safety
first, customers first, Sublime first". The club placed ads in the street
press telling its patrons what it was doing. The dance press supported the
club very, very well. Water, water everywhere and lots to drink. Sublime’s
four ways to water: the Water Park with its free water bubbles; jugs of
water and glasses at the bar like as used to be the case in old fashioned
tenants; and glasses of iced water for a dollar service charge. The club is
not hiding behind the fact that it has to make money. The dance community
tends to drink less alcohol. The bottled Sublime fresh water is still
available. That is important because the club was selling one bottle per
patron anyway and then they were going to the toilets to fill up the bottle
- not the most hygienic place to fill up a water bottle. Now they can go to
the Water Park and fill it up with fresh, chilled, filtered water.
It was decided that a feature should be made of the room. It used to have a
pool table so that was pulled out. There is astro-turf like on a fake golf
course; the walls have rain forest wall paper on it. There are four water
bubblers like in a school yard along the back wall and there is actually a
poster put out by the Centre for Information and Education on Drugs and
Alcohol, a Commonwealth government funded organisation. It says, "This is
what to look for if you think your friend might be having a problem".
When the police walk in they are taken to that room and shown that there is
a big sign on the wall explaining that if you have taken ecstasy and you are
having problems, this is what happens, this is how to try and help yourself,
and it guides people to our first aid room. Interestingly, this room was set
up at a cost of no more than Australian $2,500-3,000. That is like one
hundred and fifty patrons paying on one night. Three park benches were
installed in there, and it is at a slightly lower temperature so people can
sit on the park bench with a friend who is overheating and take them to the
water bubbler. They sit round on the grass as though it is a picnic. The
mainstream press still had to slightly sensationalise the issue. The
mainstream press were involved to say, "Look, this is a positive thing,
let’s give this some profile".
"Club water parks to beat death. The Sydney nightclub Sublime last night
introduced a water park room with bubblers and free water supplies after a
drug related death on its premises earlier this year. Sublime consulted the
national drug and alcohol research center after a twenty two year old man
died at the club. ‘It is really harm minimisation and a responsible approach
to serving alcohol ’ says Sublime’s owner. ‘Clubbing is a hot and sweaty
thing’. The chill out room has four water filtered, water bubblers, rain
forest wall paper and synthetic grass and park benches".
The question that needs to be asked, not only by the night club industry but
health professionals as well, is how we can make night clubs safer for
tomorrow’s teenagers without the wider community facing up to the fact that
recreational drug taking is here to stay
Simon Page
Sublime Nightclub, The Basement, 244 Pitt Street, Sydney, Australia.
Phone no: +61-2 926 48 428. Email: [email protected]
Setting the scene
The message I would like to share is that to truly make a club as healthy as
possible you have to publicly own up to the fact that your clubs patrons are
going to take drugs. Then, and perhaps only then, can you put harm
minimisation practices in place in an open and up front fashion.
A great deal of money has been invested in Sublime nightclub so it was very
important to manage the drug issue properly otherwise the club would be
closed down due to the wider community’s lack of understanding and indeed
the fear of the whole recreational drug culture. Within the first six months
of trading in the second half of 1996, it was realised that it was useless
to simply pretend that the patrons did not take drugs.
The first initiative was to create a first aid room with full time staff,
trained to around nursing level and armed with automatic defibrillators.
Before that was in place, the police were approached to see whether they
would see the creation of a first aid room as condoning drug taking, but the
police were actually quite realistic. They described the drug situation in
society as a whole as a "runaway train". The police were therefore
supportive of the first aid initiative as a harm minimisation policy.
Unfortunately having realistic police does not stop them from having to
carry out the community’s expectations so the club still gets raided by drug
squad police in a heavy handed fashion.
The second initiative was to bottle our ‘Sublime’ water and using 500ml
bottles with a message printed on the label recommending how much water to
consume while at a dance party. Again the bottle and the message could have
been seen as condoning the taking of ecstasy but the very high usage of
ecstasy by patrons had to be faced and the main aim had to be keeping them
safe.
So far so good, but nothing could prepare the ground for what happened
around the time of the clubs third birthday on 16th July 1999, when a
clubber dropped dead on the dance floor. The front page of one of the
biggest selling newspapers in Australia the next morning cried: "Death on
the dance floor: clubs warned of lethal drug batch" and another Sunday
paper: "Killer drug on the street". They used great sensationalist terms:
‘the agony of ecstasy’, ‘Dad mourns special son’, ‘Night clubs dodge hard
questions’.
The death of Michael Overton is perhaps the highest profiled club death in
this city since Anna Wood, the sixteen year old who died near a rave in the
mid nineties. The media’s immediate reaction to both was the same hysterical
hyperbole that drugs were to blame, that the victims were caught up in the
dance of death. Allegedly last Sunday’s ‘Sun’ was slightly more restrained
than the recording which followed Anna’s death but when there is an alcohol
accident and dozens of heroin deaths each night, is this the sort of
sensationalised coverage that will help the situation? Few of you could have
got through last week without coming across some mention of the unfortunate
death at Sublime two Fridays ago. The loss of young life irrespective of the
conditions is a sad thing in anyone’s language. What continues to hurt this
situation is the irresponsible reporting of such issues, sure we all make
mistakes, get on the proverbial soap box as journalists and let the heart
rule the pen instead of remaining impartial, but when some of the nation’s
most high profile papers do not even get their facts straight over an
incident that could potentially have far reaching impacts, things are not
looking bright.
Even after all the genuine harm minimisation efforts that had been made,
after Michael Overton had died, Sydney’s politicians wanted to close the
club. No discussion, no questions, close the club. The club managed to keep
the doors open and decided there were two ways to go. One: get heavy with
the patrons, throw them out of the club if drug use or involvement was
suspected. This would probably mean the club closing anyway as the patrons
deserted. Or two: continue with even more harm minimisation measures.
The club continued facing up to the drug issue with the help of the Drug and
Alcohol Research Centre in New South Wales. A special room was designed and
built in the club by slightly increasing the club’s entry fee - quite
openly, not as a cynical exercise. Patrons were asked: "Would you prefer to
pay a slightly increased entry fee and get free water?" 88% voted that they
would do that. So now there is an area in the club separate from the chill
out area which is called the Water Park.
All the other nightclub owners thought this was crazy, it would put a hole
in the club’s financial bottom line but the gross takings had actually gone
up as the patrons had voted with their feet and said they were prepared to
support a club which does that. We advertised it: "H2O dollars: the best
things in life are free. Water is free in Sublime from next weekend. Safety
first, customers first, Sublime first". The club placed ads in the street
press telling its patrons what it was doing. The dance press supported the
club very, very well. Water, water everywhere and lots to drink. Sublime’s
four ways to water: the Water Park with its free water bubbles; jugs of
water and glasses at the bar like as used to be the case in old fashioned
tenants; and glasses of iced water for a dollar service charge. The club is
not hiding behind the fact that it has to make money. The dance community
tends to drink less alcohol. The bottled Sublime fresh water is still
available. That is important because the club was selling one bottle per
patron anyway and then they were going to the toilets to fill up the bottle
- not the most hygienic place to fill up a water bottle. Now they can go to
the Water Park and fill it up with fresh, chilled, filtered water.
It was decided that a feature should be made of the room. It used to have a
pool table so that was pulled out. There is astro-turf like on a fake golf
course; the walls have rain forest wall paper on it. There are four water
bubblers like in a school yard along the back wall and there is actually a
poster put out by the Centre for Information and Education on Drugs and
Alcohol, a Commonwealth government funded organisation. It says, "This is
what to look for if you think your friend might be having a problem".
When the police walk in they are taken to that room and shown that there is
a big sign on the wall explaining that if you have taken ecstasy and you are
having problems, this is what happens, this is how to try and help yourself,
and it guides people to our first aid room. Interestingly, this room was set
up at a cost of no more than Australian $2,500-3,000. That is like one
hundred and fifty patrons paying on one night. Three park benches were
installed in there, and it is at a slightly lower temperature so people can
sit on the park bench with a friend who is overheating and take them to the
water bubbler. They sit round on the grass as though it is a picnic. The
mainstream press still had to slightly sensationalise the issue. The
mainstream press were involved to say, "Look, this is a positive thing,
let’s give this some profile".
"Club water parks to beat death. The Sydney nightclub Sublime last night
introduced a water park room with bubblers and free water supplies after a
drug related death on its premises earlier this year. Sublime consulted the
national drug and alcohol research center after a twenty two year old man
died at the club. ‘It is really harm minimisation and a responsible approach
to serving alcohol ’ says Sublime’s owner. ‘Clubbing is a hot and sweaty
thing’. The chill out room has four water filtered, water bubblers, rain
forest wall paper and synthetic grass and park benches".
The question that needs to be asked, not only by the night club industry but
health professionals as well, is how we can make night clubs safer for
tomorrow’s teenagers without the wider community facing up to the fact that
recreational drug taking is here to stay
References
"Water: Another Sublime innovation for quality clubbing", Australian Press.
http://www.drugtext.org/library/articles/page.htm
