C. Flanigan

Rave at the Cow Palace on May 23, 2009 in San Francisco, California.

Raves would be outlawed at publicly owned venues in California under legislation introduced by Democratic Assemblywoman Fiona Ma of San Francisco on Wednesday, the Los Angeles Times reported. The bill would also ban raves on private property unless a business owner has a license to hold the event.

Ma told the LA Times that “the bill is not intended to impact traditional music concerts and sporting events. AB 74 is about cracking down on raves that harbor drug use and lead to teenage deaths.”

The bill defines raves as public events at night that play prerecorded music for more than three and a half hours, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Two men in their 20s died after a rave at the Cow Palace in Daly City in May that sent more than a dozen other partygoers to local hospitals in ambulances. The five ravers who were sent to Seton Medical Center in Daly City were so seriously ill that the emergency room activated its disaster plan for the first time since the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, The Bay Citizen reported.

Jason Sperling of Skills DJ Workshop, who produced the Cow Palace rave, denounced Ma’s bill as heavy-handed. “If electronic music is criminalized, our government will succeed in alienating a generation of Californians and simply drive dance parties underground — a less regulated, less safe, less sane situation than we have today,” he said in a statement quoted by the LA Times.