Owners, Managers Could Face Jail for 'Rave' Parties

CHICAGO-Building owners, lessors and property managers could spend up to six months in jail for allowing “rave” parties on their property. The drug Ecstasy is the most common used at these parties, which feature music in large industrial or vacant commercial buildings.

The proposed ordinance, which goes to the city council March 28, is similar to a city law that hold multifamily building owners liable for stiff penalties–confiscation of the building for repeat offenders–if they rent to drug dealers. Speaking outside 766 W. Jackson Blvd. on the Near West Side, where police say rave parties were held before they shut them down last year, Mayor Richard M. Daley indicated liquor laws, fire and safety codes also can be enforced against owners of buildings used for rave parties.

“But these don’t get to the heart of the matter,” Daley says. “People who let their facilities be used for drug parties should be criminally liable. An owner might think twice about allowing drug use on his property if he knew he could end up going to jail.”