Raves, Drug Use And Premises Liability Concerns

Labor Day weekend is always a time when California residents have more parties and entertainment events, like concerts and raves. For example, this past Labor Day the San Manuel Amphitheater hosted a massive rave, which attracted over 67,000 attendees. Large rave events like this can be very dangerous because they tend to be a hot bed for drug activity.

Just this summer, three people died at a rave held in San Bernardino County, and authorities believe the deaths were the result of drug abuse. Fortunately, at this past Labor Day weekend’s rave — called Nocturnal Wonderland — no one died, but police did arrest over 400 people and five were taken to the hospital.

Due to recurrent drug-related and other problems at raves, medical professionals have criticized the safety precautions taken by rave operators, saying that more needs to be done to prevent injuries. In fact, certain jurisdictions in California have begun to create new laws to improve the safety provided by rave operators. Furthermore, rave operators say that they have independently taken steps that should make the raves safer.

Nevertheless, drug overdoses seem to be a serious problem at these events, and government officials are trying to figure out how to prevent them from happening. Government officials may also want to consider rules and regulations that will prevent slips, falls and other types of accidents from happening on the property of venues that are hosting rave events.

Ultimately, when a slip-and-fall accident occurs at a rave event, questions may arise over the liability of a property owner for the accident victim’s injuries. This is yet another reason why property owners may want to curb the abuse of drugs at these concert events. When participants are less intoxicated and/or not using drugs in excess, less slip-and-fall accidents and related injuries will happen at these events.

Source: Los Angeles Times, “After a summer of deaths and arrests at rave concerts, solutions are hard to find,” Rong-Gong Lin II, Sep. 10, 2016