Death on the dancefloor

Simon Page

Sublime Nightclub, The Basement, 244 Pitt Street, Sydney, Australia.

Phone no: +61-2 926 48 428. Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

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 16^th 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.