June 29, 200818 yr Active Members Anybody know anything? Got this email from Mark Nelson's mailing list: Who Called the Police? Saint @ Large (klik) Venue Change 4 Champions The Saint @ Large party has been moved to... Capitale http://www.capitaleny.com (amazing space) 130 Bowery @ the corner of Grand. C U there! The Official Afterparty of NYC's Dance on the Pier benefiting Heritage Of Pride Music by Stephan Grondin (10pm - 3am) Jonathan Peters (3am - 8am) Junior Vasquez (8am - 2pm) Advance Tix: $60 thru day of event $70 @ door / $30 under 28 after 4am Tix: Nasty Pig: 265A W 19th St / Screaming Mimi’s: 382 Lafayette St / Village Apothecary: 346 Bleecker St / Wear Me Out: 353 W 47th St Watch Movie Trailer of Party Last night the NYPD swept the town & caused all kinds of commotion. I was home in bed; so don't know any details. Victor Calderone's Evolve is postponed tonight. Tickets for Evolve will be honored @ a later time ... ______________________________________________________________
June 29, 200818 yr Active Members This would truly be pathetic if it really happened. On a side note... Stephan Grondin (who is from Montreal) is my favorite DJ right now. I am really glad he's being recognized outside of the confines of Quebec.
July 1, 200818 yr Active Members Nobody busted Club 20 on Sunday night as dozens of dancers entertained...Otherwise: Gay Pride Weekend Brings Club Raids by Steve Weinstein New York Editor-In-Chief Saturday Jun 28, 2008 Police notice posted on the door of Pacha. (Source:Matt Kalkhoff) On Friday, June 27, tens of thousands of men were pouring out onto the streets of Manhattan from all over the country expecting a citywide party. The last weekend in June is not only a celebration of Gay Pride, but also a lucrative weekend-long festival of gay dance events. But this year, something else happened. The City of New York, which has been cracking down hard on gay sex venues, moved in with a vengeance on nightclubs. Splash was reportedly overrun by police, although no one from the city or the club returned calls for comment. The club has, however, remained open. The other club was shut down. Pacha, the megaclub on the western edge of Hell’s Kitchen, was scheduled to hold two major dance parties for Gay Pride: Victor Calderone’s Pride Evolve on Saturday; and the Saint at Large’s Champions on Sunday night. Champions has been moved to Capitale, a large space on the border of the Lower East Side and Chinatown where Saint at Large has held parties in the past. Mike Peyton, of the Saint at Large, said that anyone with a ticket for Pacha party should simply show up at Capitale, which is the Bowery a few blocks above Canal Street, and the ticket will be honored. Moving the party has cost the Saint at Large probably much, if not most, of the proceeds, which were to go to Heritage of Pride, the organization that runs the march down Fifth Avenue. A notice at Pacha gave the following information for the club shutdown. There has been surveillance of the club since Aug. 11, 2007. Since that time, the warrent said, there have been drugs bought that included Ecstasy in various quantities for about $20 per pill; cocaine, up to as much as $750 worth; marijuana; and "alleged" ketamine (which could mean it was sold as Special K, but might have been a substitute). The warrant cited drug buys within the cub on dates from August 2007 into June 2008, but the big drug buys only started occurring around December of last year. The club remains closed as of this writing. According to some reports, Marquee, a straight club on the "club strip" in West Chelsea, was also shut down by authorities. But many people, both New Yorkers and out-of-towners, are wondering about the timing of these incidents on the biggest all-gay weekend of the
July 1, 200818 yr Author Active Members Lucky, Thanks for the article. The timing is curious. I have no qualms with legitimate law enforcement; and there were legit law enforcement goals here. But the timing takes it beyond law enforcement to harrasment IMO. These raids could just as easily have been carried out last week or next week. Me thinks the NYPD is trying to send a message. I hope the Gay Community has some political clout to bring to bear on this.
July 1, 200818 yr If the clubs involved, gay or straight, were caught in flagrante allowing illegal drug dealing on their premises, it's harder to make a case for unequivocal harassment of gays in the pre-Stonewall manner. Other than that, homophobic harassment is so out of character with everything I'm aware of about the Bloomberg administration that I find it hard to believe in this case. Still, that doesn't mean that antennas shouldn't be constantly attuned to the possibility, regardless of who is in office. As the man said: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance". In the event, the incidents in the clubs don't seem to have thrown a wet blanket over the Pride parade, which appears to have been a huge success. Biggest single highlight: Gov. Paterson marched in it soon after eye surgery and was cheered like a hero.
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