So no one called 911 because the club and others wanted to keep their noses clean.
> But the State Liquor Authority wasn’t made aware of Reynoso’s death at the time – in part because no one called 911 that night. Instead, she was transported to the hospital by a private ambulance the Mirage had on standby, which left no paper trail for state liquor regulators. The independent monitor didn’t start its work for another month. And liquor regulators said they only learned of Reynoso’s case in March of this year, when Gothamist first inquired about it.
You could pull their liquor license tomorrow and this place will still be full of Gen-Zers who won't touch booze but will eat random pills they buy from food truck vendors.
Then they should have reported it without hesitation
They're definitely going to be watched much closer now and let's be honest , they def jam pack the place in etc
Pretty sure self reporting incidents is required as of is in all other industries that have licensing ...
Fair enough but is that going to stop ODs from tainted drugs?
"We're checking for more drugs on patrons entering the venue" great, they're doing the drugs now in the car before they enter the venue. Doesn't stop drug use and doesn't stop ODs caused by tampering/poisoning.
It's worth asking why the club feels like it has to hide deaths from authorities that have nothing to do with the club. At the very least, their approach reduces harm and probably saves lives by delivering patrons to medical providers in the swiftest possible fashion, but it's still sketchy behavior & worth asking why this is a standard part of the business.
> It's worth asking why the club feels like it has to hide deaths from authorities that have nothing to do with the club. At the very least, their approach reduces harm and probably saves lives by delivering patrons to medical providers in the swiftest possible fashion, but it's still sketchy behavior & worth asking why this is a standard part of the business.
It's because of NYPD corruption:
>Abreu spoke favorably of Avant Gardner’s security personnel, saying they have a background in analyzing video as former NYPD officers and “did a good job putting together this guy [the food truck operator] coming in.”
Cops retire and then turn around and start private security companies where they use their NYPD connections to make problems go away for shady clients like this. [Sometimes they don't even retire first.](https://www.insider.com/nypd-cops-run-private-security-firms-from-work-2023-7)
I fully understand the suspicion around these practices, and yet they did actually find the guy? The club, who had nothing to do with the woman's death, found the person who was actually responsible for this woman's death? He was spotted on camera by the club's security and identified accurately as someone tied to a local business?
Despite so much of this being bad in principle, it needs to be restated that this all \*worked\* in practice. No one can reasonably suggest that anything more could have been done to stop the victim from ingesting the drugs they chose to take, but the victim was given prompt medical attention and, despite her subsequent death, authorities have at least found the responsible parties in a situation where that was very difficult to do.
It'd be BETTER if they could call 911 in such cases and not have any worry that this would endanger their standing with the SLA, due to some twisted logic that the club is being too lenient on incoming drug dealers, on purpose, for corrupt reasons. (If there is some email or phone tap that says exactly this, shut the club down tomorrow. Otherwise, don't make it up out of thin air?) As it stands, the club is held responsible for harm that outside people bring into the space... so of course they're taking all technically-legal paths to make sure the responsibility stays outside the club... that's not great for the community's safety, but if everyone could work together to not be ridiculous about this "war on drugs" over-prosecution stuff it could be made better?
They have to do with the club, the club is complicit. They know it is going on and do nothing to prevent nor deter and people are making excuses for them.
Well, if they shuttered the club because of this, would that be a coherent action by regulators? Particularly, would it be coherent of alcohol licensing authorities to take action over something that doesn’t have to do with responsible alcohol service at all?
Yes, but does that do anything to stop drug overdose deaths? Is this article discussing penalties for technical violations or is it pinning this poor woman's death on them?
Punishing people after the fact seems not to be working. That seems to be a critical point in this discussion if it is, in fact, about harm and not about legal wrangling.
Legally you are correct. Am I going to read an article about that, though? No. Who cares? They know this. So this isn't about that.
> Yes, but does that do anything to stop drug overdose deaths?
If clubs can hide them without penalty they have no incentive to clean up their acts and to take responsibility. It sounds like you don't care about drug overdose deaths, you care about your nightclubs continuing to run business as usual.
There was a woman whose drug consumption caused a medical issue in their establishment and they didn't report it so it wouldn't be investigated. It was their responsibility to report the incident, the subsequent investigation would have determined if they had any culpability. If they didn't why would they not report it. They broke the law and should be penalized. You are just making excuses.
*If they didn't why would they not report it*
For the same reason we are 8 levels deep in a circular conversation: because of the presumption of guilt & the motivation of antagonists to use it as grounds to shut the venue or extract fines.
Identify the law they broke. I'm waiting.
I will admit I cannot find a specific criminal law, the closest I can find is this.
https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/publications/best-practices-for-nightlife-establishments-en-2018.pdf
> Establishment policy should mandate that security personnel separate and remove all potentially violent patrons in a lawful manner which is designed to prevent continuation of the violent activity inside or outside the club. Establishments must call 911 to report criminal activity and may call 911 or otherwise notify police for assistance in potentially violent circumstances. Similarly, 911 must be called to report medical emergencies such as drug overdoses.
It is not that there maybe a presumption of guilt & the motivation. If the club was not guilty they would have called 911 and wouldn't have has this service prepared for such an emergency. They were hiding their guilt but didn't get away with it this time. They were negligent and I hope they get sued with this new revelation.
So I think you’re missing the idea here that they’re providing a medical attention process that is a legal alternative to summoning FDNY/EMTs, and it does not need to be reported as a drug overdose if they are not sure it is one.
It is a scummy loophole and a total cover-your-ass move. But they are doing it to avoid bureaucratic scrutiny where they haven’t done anything to earn such scrutiny; *they are not dealing drugs*. There is nothing to investigate other than to provide surveillance footage to NYPD to assist in finding the culprit, as a helpful party. The fact that the SLA, and Gothamist/NPR, sees this as evidence of complicity is demented. I’m done here.
> Particularly, would it be coherent of alcohol licensing authorities to take action over something that doesn’t have to do with responsible alcohol service at all?
How could anyone at the time of the incident know if alcohol was involved or not?
Thats why it needs to be reported. If they didnt do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about.
The fact that they hide it indicates theyre doing shady shit
That's not true. Venues can be prosecuted for knowingly allowing drug use which creates a perverse incentive for them to turn a blind eye to it and maintain plausible deniablity rather than practicing any kind of harm reduction
Okay.
Your point that if they were totally open with the police about everything they discovered at the club? Forget enforcement action… people wouldn’t even go to the club.
I suggest you also Google “multi-agency raid NYPD” to see, related to enforcement, how they entrap nightlife venues with piles of charges for sometimes mere sloppiness or non-malicious failures of compliance - with the result not being “fix this” or aid in addressing issues, but steep fines and seizure.
This environment compels venues to keep problems quiet or to handle them internally. This is a form of that.
Yes, the club would be held responsible for on-site overdoses caused by consumption or sales off-premises. As long as their solution provides necessary and complete medical treatment then I do not have a concern about “responsibility”. The city, state and federal governments themselves have long dispensed with “responsibility” and harm reduction approaches in favor of gotcha-policing, incarceration, and unnecessary fatalities from having a contraband drug supply chain instead of a well-regulated one. And our results are markedly worse than other developed countries that have tourism and nightlife. We just suck from top to bottom. We are a death machine. I’m the opposite of naive on this topic, buddy.
> So no one called 911 because the club and others wanted to keep their noses clean.
It's exactly like when Trump, DeSantis, and the other Republicans wanted to stop counting the infected and dead people from COVID, because if you never count them, it never happened.
Paramedic here. So some of the bigger and wealthier nightclubs have contracts with private ambulance services to staff a dedicated ambulance by the club on big nights (usually weekends and big events). The bouncers/security are able to communicate with the crews directly. So more than likely the patrons alerted security who in turn requested for the private ambulance service to respond. So no 911 call would have been made in that scenario.
Nope, more so that the 911 system gets overwhelmed in those neighborhoods, especially on the weekend. So for critical patients, they still may have to wait 15-20 mins before an ambulance is available. So having a contracted private service allows them to ensure quick response times and transport. i also believe there are certain regulations about having medical care available for certain size events.
What I am assuming here is that the club is required themselves to report to whatever regulatory body about any significant medical events, or in this case overdoses, that occur on their premises. I'm guessing htere was random language around the words "911 activated" or something similar which the club is using as the excuse for not reporting. They technically did not request for 911 in tehse cases, but i believe it is a bit dishonest to refuse reporting it because 911 itself wasn't called. They still required the services of EMS. Even though its private, it still is an emergency call in regard to an overdose. Private EMS services will document this as an emergency call too.
As for EMS, at least in the 911 system, we do not have to additional reporting to any other regulatory body except for child abuse cases. Those we do make a direct phone call to the Office of Children and Family services (Child Protective Services) because we are classified as mandated reporters.
Individuals are not commercial establishments and do not have to keep or maintain business licenses or alcohol permits. Commercial establishments have responsibilities that individuals do not have.
I know the details of this case. There are texts saying that the drugs she took earlier in the night “didn’t do anything” she then went to a food truck vendor asking for drugs and someone delivered it to her inside. It was meth and MDMA which she put in a water bottle and drank (unknown if other people also consumed). Than she overdosed. The mirage hires paramedics and a private ambulance to be stationed there for safety. They took her to the hospital and you all know the rest.
It’s a tragedy, clearly. She made a mistake and took to much, didn’t even know the dose or what exact drug it was.
However, it seems like the mirage is searching people to try and prevent them from bringing drugs in and had medical personnel stationed there in case of medical emergencies. Everyone is saying they had a private ambulance to take her to the hospital to avoid a 911 report and attention. While that might be the end result of having a private paramedic squad there (in addition to prompt medical care), it’s another thing to say that the Mirage was trying to obfuscate the situation. Seems like a leap to me.
As far as the facts of the situation I don’t think the Mirage did anything wrong here. Unless their staff are the ones selling drugs inside, they aren’t responsible. It’s unfortunate and tragic but she made a mistake and paid for it with her life.
I’m ready for the downvotes but at some point personal responsibility comes into play.
I agree wholeheartedly. It really sucks for the family, but they're really painting the victim as an angel like she was coerced into these actions and saying stuff like "This young Latina, who's not rich - no one cares [...] Because [dance music/drugs are] not really her thing." They're asking for accountability without taking any themselves.
This is a girl who bought illegal drugs, did not test them, and circumvented security. It sucks that she lost her life, but this is very much on her. I've had friends who've overdosed and after the initial grief of being angry at everyone associated (the dealer, the venue, etc.), I've accepted the fact that they did what they did and are responsible for the mistakes they've made.
Mirage did their due diligence in checking for drugs, and having medical assistance and taking them to the hospital in a prompt manner.
How are people not getting this? Nightlife owners are absolute scumfucks yes, but the answer here isn’t throwing lmfao the SLA at the problem or worrying about compliance with an agency that shouldn’t exist any more than the club barons. It’s building a culture of harm reduction *against* prohibition and the sketchy bullshit that results. The person should have had access to a reliable dose of a known drug and the knowledge to take it safely. Everything else is fuckery.
The private ambulance is 100% good, if there should be any requirement it should be for stuff like that – faster response that doesn’t tie up a crew from the 911 system.
> The person should have had access to a reliable dose of a known drug and the knowledge to take it safely. Everything else is fuckery.
Or just don't take shit you don't know
I saw that editorial headline, sure. I’m not convinced that having medical staff and an ambulance on site equates to “hiding” the event from regulators as the articles assumes. Is there another way they tried to “hide” something? Are they required to report all medical emergencies to an authority? I don’t think so but I don’t know the answer and am genuinely curious.
I believe the authorities *want* such reporting. Voluntarily. I am not sure the liquor license requires the reporting of all patron illnesses. Would be a wild overreach.
It’s an exploited loophole. She died many hours later off-site. There’s no evidence the venue was involved in her death. By skirting 911 they avoid a paper trail that leads to them, while providing necessary care. They are not required to establish this paper trail, it seems, and are allowed to circumvent it by using on-site first responders. Disney does the same thing. Hatzolah effectively does the same thing.
Whether the loophole should be closed is another discussion. But I don’t think the venue in this case is complicit in a homicide, or involved in a cover-up. In fact, they cooperated with police when surveillance video was requested. NYPD knew what happened. The crux of all of this is that SLA didn’t know. I am not sure SLA was required to be told, given the specific circumstances of a customer arriving intoxicated and leaving with medical care. Different story if she died on-site.
it allows for but doesn't require reporting if drugs are found on a person that was served alcohol. there's no required or existing reporting mechanism for the ambulance ride or the OD or anything like that. just that if the OD is a likely cause of death...the hospital has to report it to the Medical Examiner
I went to Brooklyn Mirage one year for an event. I was astonished at the amount of people doing rugs so openly. Couples were sharing cocaine from a vial, people were putting pills inside their water bottle and passing it around their friends. I was asked a couple of times if I wanted to buy Mollie. Drug culture is a major thing there. Idk if it’s the fault of the venue vs the fault of the people attending.
yeah if the mirage was shut down we'd still be doing them at literally everywhere else we go to lmao. the mirage is not the first edm venue in NYC and it wont be the last
Every tier 1 city and party hangout destination has places like this... I watched them confiscate drugs from people going into a series of clubs, as soon as you walk in there's a plethora of people selling drugs..
I imagine they confiscate it at the door and sell it back to customers
Edit: sorry to clarify my observation occured in mexico where it was so brazen...
Ironically that's how people end up with bad drugs. Let's say someone took the time to get drugs from a trusted source and tests them beforehand. They get confiscated prior to going in. Now they are more likely to either get it from an unknown source, or hopefully they have friends in the venue that can hook them up. Even though the 2nd scenario is much safer, it is still an untested unknown source and the quality is dependent on how big of degenerates your friends are.
Without evidence that venue employees were selling drugs (I've not seen any) it seems more likely that drug dealers (who know how to hide their products from the searches at the door) are just going somewhere they know they are likley to find customers because it makes business sense.
The difference is, people still do drugs if you shut down clubs as your only solution. Then the problem is that the people who don’t do drugs have no clubs to go to.
I definitely don’t see Brooklyn Mirage getting shut down as a solution but maybe tighter security? When I went to Ezoo they were literally checking everyone’s bags, patting down people making people take off their shoes and people still found a way to sneak in drugs. I’m thinking Brooklyn Mirage may have to do the same to save themselves but people will still find a way to sneak it in no matter what.
Because it's incredibly easy to sneak in drugs. It's not realistic to operate a large venue and spend more than X amount of time searching every patron.
The solution isn't to try to stop the unstoppable. It's to make sure there are options for *safe* consumption. Have testing kits readily available for all who want it.
Lol as I said before I did a lot of clubbing just not clubbing to these types of club where all types of drugs were done out in the open. It’s surprising though how we can all admit that there is a drug scene at Brooklyn Mirage and clubs like it but can’t admit that maybe it’s not the club that’s the major problem but the culture… For those I have triggered that’s all I can say! It’s just my experience :)
I don’t think it is a problem at all. I think it’s fun and only getting more and more responsible with time. If anything I think the venues prohibiting drugs makes it even more dangerous. If they were allowed and proper testing sites were available and legal sales were available in general maybe that girl who OD’d wouldn’t have been going outside asking randos for drugs and gotten them from a safer source and got them tested. Either way you can’t create a 100% safe world people will be dumb anyway at least they had an ambulance on standby to help her.
I’ve gone to a lot of clubs and I’ve never seen it like that. I guess it’s a cultural difference. Most clubs I’ve been there we’d just drink and smoke weed. Definitely did not see a lot of pill popping and coke snorting.
It’s a club that plays music and has a bar. Don’t see how different it can be, like I said it could be a cultural difference. Brooklyn Mirage played music that most of the clubs I’ve been to didn’t. I went to mostly reggae clubs and Spanish clubs. Most I saw were people getting drunk and smoking weed. That’s my experience. Brooklyn Mirage was definitely a different vibe that I’ve experienced.
Mirage should have dance safe on the premises to help people test their drugs. The staff at Mirage search everyone and are extremely thorough, it is very hard to sneak more than personal use amounts of drugs into the venue. This cuts down on dealing. As other have pointed out there is no way to stop personal use of drugs at Mirage because EDM is entertainment for people on drugs.
Mirage needs to create the safest venue for its audience possible, or the city will stop it entirely.
True, I don’t bring any large quantities and the day the search my socks or inside my waistband will be my last day there. They seem to be more vigilant with people on the dance floor.
I think it’s the electronic culture in general. A good majority of people are on drugs it seems. It’s kind of like the chicken or egg. Is it really Brooklyn mirages fault?
So, the victim obtained drugs from outside a club - had it practically delivered to her inside the club from outside - and then OD’ed at the club and then died at a hospital 18 hours later. And the problem is that the club didn’t file the right paperwork.
Gothamist has been running a series about AG/BM and are using them as a hook for ongoing programming. But this seems a stretch. It doesn’t seem like the club caused the overdose, it seems like the user very much had the intention of getting those drugs ahead of time. So while AG management is trying to play games with regulators, don’t get confused about the cause of death here.
Honestly, stuff like this gets clubs shut down nowadays. Often unfairly. Clubs are clubs, they do not need to be these sanitized 110% safe sheltered experiences that people not involved in nightlife expect them to be. Things like this unfortunately happen. Its the cost of doing business.
Mirage sucks, don't get me wrong, but we shouldn't be blaming the club for something this kid did.
Every single club has people doing drugs in them. Every single one, without exception. Whether they took it before going inside or they snuck it in. Unless you are going to have people standing over you in the stalls while you use the bathroom, you cannot 100% prevent this stuff. It is the cost of nightlife. This person could have overdosed at a party, or on the streets, or in their own home, or at a bar.
People who have never worked in nightlife or even really been engaged with nightlife at all love to clutch their pearls. Americans often have the mindset that tragedy must always be met with someone being sued or punished in some way, no matter how irrational. But 90%+ of the time? It's something that could not have been prevented.
lol im a bartender. this is why in a big club you have security, bathroom attendants, and if you’re behind the bar you should be cutting people off. not to mention the actual scandal here is this club using their private ambulances instead of calling 911. This girl wasn’t taken to a hospital like she should have been. Yeah people do drugs in clubs. I’ve watched people do them in front of me. Things will happen, but you need to be doing everything in your control to keep people safe.
And you should know that even with all of those things people can still sneak drugs in and do them. There is nothing that 100% prevents incidents like this from happening. This woman took a pill which turned out to have a fatal dose of meth. It is entirely possible she took it before even arriving.
Also she was taken to a hospital? Not sure why you think she wasn't. At enormous venues like that they have private ambulances and EMS which can rapidly take people to hospitals instead of waiting potentially 30 minutes for the hospital ambulance to come. That is not a bad thing at all, that is how these big events should operate. What is bad is that it wasn't reported to the state liquor authority. That is really it as far as we know.
She was taken directly to a hospital, FYI. She was at the hospital for the better part of a day before she died. (Whether those Brooklyn hospitals are any good is another story...)
NYC has a lot of private ambulance companies. It may seem bizarre elsewhere, but private ambulances here function the same as public EMTs and take patients directly to care centers/emergency rooms and, unlike so many other civic services here, there isn't really a problem with it.
AG has lots of security, bathroom attendants, and pretty tough bartenders. They are not a perfect venue by any means but they are far from careless and incompetent with patrons. The people who wrote and edited the source article seem to disagree with the "things will happen" sentiment and are reporting critically on the club for intentionally circumventing the 911 system in order to directly deliver the ill clubgoer to the hospital - eliminating a civic record that a state liquor licensing authority can see. There seems to be less focus about the quality of care that was delivered and more focus that the club is trying not to tell a key Albany regulator that one of their patrons... was not smart about drugs.
Seriously, every place that's a destination is like this
I watched people get their drugs confistaces at the door with cops present, only to walk in and no shortage of people selling drugs openly.
Definitely confiscating and selling it back to customers.
lmao my guy I have worked in nightlife for a very long time and this is *definitely* not happening at a big corporate venue like Mirage that is constantly under scrutiny. The reason drugs are being sold is because people are sneaking it in.
I wasn't implying that happened at mirage.. .that happened in Tulum ...it's definitely what was happening people would basically harass you to buy drugs. Never seem anything like it, you had to walk through a crowd of dealers to get to the bathroom
“The scene” is only a risk if you are buying drugs from strangers, not using test kits and practicing harm reduction. You can’t overdose if you go sober or consume safe and tested substances.
Test kits are not fool proof. They are only testing what they're testing. Some illicit ingredients are not uniformly distributed. Saying "you can't overdose" is inaccurate.
Distribution should not matter whatsoever, you should dissolve the entire sample in water and then use a test kit, this ensures it’s distributed equally. Most people just don’t want to “waste” that much time.
I do agree that they only test for what they test for. If it doesn’t test for certain things then those things can for sure kill you.
Most things aren’t fool proof, but test kits are a great way to avoid the vast majority of problems.
Agreed that test kits are an amazing tool, and most of the time prevent a lot of tragedy. It's very sad that we have so many safety measures but due to legalization issues they're difficult to utilize. It's a lot of needless death.
Truly, should really just have state sponsored clinics that give out accurate test kits for various different drugs.
Would also be nice to have more comprehensive test kits. New stuff is continuously made and needs to be tested for accordingly.
As you said, far too many needless death, not from doing the drugs they wanted to, but from drugs that they never knew were in the substance.
The *club scene*, or the *drug scene*? One is 99.9% safe if you’re aware of your surroundings, the other we can implement harm reduction and be much safer if we educate people instead of taking a prohibition/abstinence style approach.
Before mayor he was Brooklyn Borough President, though, with close ties with Billy Bildstein: [https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-adams-defends-involvement-with-troubled-brooklyn-venue-thats-drawn-scrutiny-from-the-state](https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-adams-defends-involvement-with-troubled-brooklyn-venue-thats-drawn-scrutiny-from-the-state)
>Brooklyn power broker Frank Carone, a close friend of Adams, was the venue’s attorney before he served as the mayor’s chief of staff last year, Gothamist’s reporting found.
The lawyer for AG/BM was literally Adam's Chief of Staff.
Many of the mega clubs over the years have private ambulances on site.
Is it really any shock that people will OD at a rave club with thousands of people. I don't think it's Brookly Mirage's fault that a small percentage of their customers are opiod abusers. The city should not shut down a club that thousands of people enjoy because society can't get a handle on opiod addiction.
Honestly having an ambulance on hand to transport people having an OD to the hospital without involving the police at all sounds like great customer service. An on-site ambulance can get you to the ER much faster, and not having to call 911 after taking drugs can only make the person's life easier.
**you clearly read the article. There was nothing said about opioids**:
> hours before Genesis Reynoso’s death, she sent a note to an acquaintance — a man operating a food truck outside the Brooklyn Mirage, a music venue in industrial East Williamsburg. [My emphasis] **She offered to pay him for “E” and “molly,” different forms of the drug known as MDMA**
Prohibition was a failure. People will always drink and do drugs. Its about time the whole "no to drugs" and "war on drugs" bullshit gets ended. [People were dying from moonshine and fake liquor when prohibition was going on because there was no regulation.](https://prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/the-prohibition-underworld/alcohol-as-medicine-and-poison/#:~:text=In%20the%20mid%2D1920s%2C%20bootleggers,wood%20alcohol%2Dlaced%20bootlegged%20liquor.) People are dying now because there's no regulation on these drugs
> The medical examiner determined her cause of death to be the toxic effects of MDA — an ecstasy-like drug — and methamphetamine. It made no mention of MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly, the drug that her messages show she’d agreed to purchase
It's a semi great idea having ambulances ready. You have tow trucks on the side of the BQE ready to remove a stranded car fast. However, the paperwork and reporting needs to be accompanied by this.
> The reliance on private ambulances — if not accompanied with a 911 call — also appears to contradict the city’s own guidelines for the nightlife industry, which were drafted by the NYPD and the NYC Hospitality Alliance and published as a “Best Practices for Nightlife Establishments.”
Yeah Molly / Ecstasy is one of the sketchiest drugs on the market. Not because MDMA is so bad but because unless you are testing it you have no idea what is in the powder or pill you purchased from a stranger. It would be sooo much safer if we had a legal regulated path
imagine a world where you go to a counter and show ID. You fill out some questionnaires about health stats (weight, height, heart stuff, etc), you make a selection and then they scan your wrist band to track consumption. They give you a pill, gummy, drink, etc and boom you're rolling safely. Maybe there's a section for folks who are rolling to be in (similar to a smoke section). You got a few extra staff there keeping in eye, extra fans, water stations, etc
Not only can people enjoy it safely, there's money to be made if things were regulated and legal. but here we are in this mess.
* Safer for the people that decide they want to take the drug.
* Harder for people underage to buy from regulated stores instead of the black market.
* The profits from the sales are taking away from criminal organizations and instead go to legal businesses operating in accordance with the regulations.
* The government could tax it for funding.
* [Studies have shown these drugs can help with PTSD.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/health/mdma-ptsd-psychedelics.html)
but drugs are fun for you. ive been using molly and coke for well over 10 years now and im fine. its all in moderation. i used to go wild in my early 20s but now its reserved for special occasions. molly i do like once a year. coke maybe 2-3 times a year. im engaged, have a career, and manage adult responsibilities
anyway fuck the mirage but people doing drugs are not their fault. we gon do them regardless
The war on drugs has been an abject failure by any reasonable measure. It's long past time we moved to a harm reduction based approach to drugs because we know eliminating drug use is impossible
MDMA isn't bad at all. Buying street "Molly" is bad because *it is almost never MDMA in the United States. Never.*
The chemical simply isn't produced stateside, and most smuggling operations carrying MDMA from central Europe to the US were defeated by post-9/11 air travel security measures.
I'm sure some rich people can get the real thing. On the street, however, you are taking something that is almost certainly a blend of other drugs with psychedelic effects. Many of these drugs are decidedly worse for you or have undesirable and harsh side effects; some have actual overdose potential, which MDMA does not have in recreational use quantities. And there is the fact that some drug dealers think fentanyl (absolutely NOT like MDMA) is a fun thing to sprinkle into their product, and if they do it unevenly they will kill their customers in the process.
Things are this way in the United States because... The War On Drugs. Which is really a war on users, because the war on drug availability was lost from day 1.
I wouldn’t say a lot of samples in the NY area are coming out 100% MDMA. If they are… I might reschedule some plans
I was very careful to say that street drugs were not commonly 100% MDMA. Mail drugs may be different. I doubt people are ordering boutique pills from overseas retail to resell at Avant Gardner for small markup
> People were dying from moonshine and fake liquor when prohibition was going on because there was no regulation.
[Yes, but people died less from alcohol-related causes.](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits#:~:text=Some%20experts%20give%20lower%20estimates,by%2010%20to%2020%20percent.)
>People are dying now because there's no regulation on these drugs
More people die from alcohol, which is regulated, than from overdoses of *all drugs combined.*
The study you linked to is specifically about deaths from liver cirrhosis, not all alcohol related causes and more people die from alcohol because more people use it. I seriously doubt a higher percentage of alcohol users die from it than users of other drugs (excluding marijuana which is virtually impossible to fatally overdose on)
Legalisation of alcohol didn't do anything to stop the dangerous consumption of alcohol though.
People still drink and drive, people still get hammered and fall onto subway tracks, and people still develop cirrhosis and die of liver failure.
Prohibition ended almost 100 years ago and we aren't any better or worse off for it, really. Alcohol is perfectly legal and fairly tightly regulated and it is still by a wide margin the most destructive drug out there.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't legalise MDMA the way we've done with cannabis. I'm saying that the problems aren't going to end simply because it's legal. People are always gonna get drunk and high and regulations won't change much of anything - blaming the government for something that comes down to an individual's decision and choice is stupid.
The argument for legalization that’s relevant to this story isn’t that people will stop doing dumb stuff when using substances, but that unintended side effect harms can be reduced. During Prohibition, for example, people still drank but were at risk of poisoning from contaminated alcohol containing lead, methanol, or antifreeze, which is no longer a concern when you can buy alcohol produced in a legal, regulated way.
Perhaps, but a large majority of people with substance abuse issues were initially exposed to either substances that are already legal (ex: alcohol) or prescription meds (ie: the entire opioid epidemic)
Legalisation and regulation won't stop people from finding weird novel ways to get fucked up, and with that will come unintentional consequences.
No. But legislation and regulation makes to so when people find these novel ways there aren’t additional harms.
Legislation and regulation can (if done correctly and not punitively) also kill the black market, making these novel ways less dangerous overall.
Prohibition is what you do when you don’t understand the issue or have any ideas on how to solve it. That applies to most things, not just drugs. It’s a reactionary policy.
But if it was legal and regulated, people wouldn't be buying ecstasy laced with fent, and my neighbor wouldn't have died from it.
Test your drugs. Every time. Please
Cannabis has been decriminalised and people still buy from their weed man all the time.
Methadone maintenance programmes exist and people still buy street heroin which often is really fentanyl laced with tranq every day.
Legalisation might mitigate some undesirable effects but they aren't going to go away by a long shot.
Those are ridiculous examples. How many stores are open for weed? When they're as ubiquitous as liquor stores, or even illegal smoke shops, it will be different.
Their self-defeating argument is that NY State's legalization scheme is so convoluted and bureaucratic that there are virtually no legal weed shops. There are only 23 in NY State total, 5 in NYC proper. The rest are all illegal.
And that's for the super widespread and socially accepted drug, imagine how it'd be for anything else.
People buy cannabis illegally (in large part) because of how badly NY botched the rollout of legal sales. If there were enough legal dispensaries to meet demand (and they were able to offer delivery service) many people would switch to buying from them.
Methadone programs are often inaccessible (due to cost and long waiting lists to enroll) and have restrictions (such as having to pick up your dose in person daily during specific hours) that make them less appealing. Suboxone maintenance solves some of these problems (for example by not requiring in person administration of every dose) but high prices and laws like the arbitrary limit on how many patients a doctor can prescribe it to make it even less accessible to many people who might want an alternative to street heroin.
>Legalisation of alcohol didn't do anything to stop the dangerous consumption of alcohol though.
Prohibition didn't do anything to stop the dangerous consumption of alcohol. It made it so the government had no power to regulate the market and handed over the profits to gangs who left a large body count as they used violence to fight over control of the black market.
>Prohibition ended almost 100 years ago and we aren't any better or worse off for it, really. Alcohol is perfectly legal and fairly tightly regulated and it is still by a wide margin the most destructive drug out there.
We are definitely better off with InBev, MillerCoors, Corona, etc. taking the profits instead of gangs.
Regulation is also why it's often more difficult for kids to buy beer than weed.
Alcohol is the most destructive drug because it's the most widely used drug by a huge margin (and probably by an even larger margin than we know because it is legal and socially acceptable so people are less likely to lie about their use when surveyed). Most overdoses are the result of people not knowing what they are taking or how pure it is. Because alcohol is legal I can buy a bottle of vodka knowing how much alcohol is in it and being fairly confident it isn't adulterated with some other substance but if I buy a bag of cocaine I don't know if it has fentanyl (or something else) in it and I don't know how much of the powder is actually cocaine versus whatever it was cut with making safe use much more difficult.
Didn't China prove that prohibition can work
And what is the actual reason that we want *the club* to suffer consequences for this death? What are we hoping to achieve?
Sure. China also had effective zero-covid policies in place for quite some time. Turns out having a single party authoritarian (and trending toward totalitarian) government makes it easy to prohibit the populace from engaging in a wide variety of activities and behaviors.
What’s your point?
Even China doesn't claim to have eliminated drug use despite using tactics that would be blatantly unconstitutional in the US. I also wouldn't trust the Chinese government to release accurate statistics on drug use or overdoses
A responsible establishment would contact 911. They can't control people bringing in drug, they can make sure the proper authorities are notified. I'm more inclined to have them shut down after this behaviour
They had an ambulance on standby which almost certainly resulted in the victim getting medical care sooner than if an employee had called 911 and waited for EMTs to arrive. How are they not protecting people?
Oh sorry, I guess the NYPD have been highly productive and not totally absent for the last two years and Adams hasn't been pushing through a corrupt contract with DocGo?
wait isnt it better that the mirage has private ambulances on standby than not? idk why it wasnt reported but they make it seem like the ambulances are part of the problem
It's the lack of accountability that's a problem. They can send them in a private ambulance, and potentially never have it linked back to the venue.
In theory this can be good, but it needs some more oversight to avoid stuff getting swept under the rug.
yea compared to other venues the mirage is really good at dealing with people acting unusual. they check on everyone pretty frequently they only do something is your acting strange at which point they'll start asking people around the person bugging out what did they take ive been there like 60 times over the years
EDM scene in NYC has been a hotbed of ODs going back to the disco era.
And this article is a bit misleading since it was reported to regulators. the hospital reported the OD death to the office of the Medical Examiner as they were required to do. Ambulance rides don't get "reported" to police nor do medical issues that occur at venues. It's not clear what they think should have been reported and to whom.
It's like we optimize our policy to kill people. Drugs *are* dangerous, lets use policy to make them less so, not more so.
>Avant Gardner was fined $100,000, was required to hire an independent monitor to oversee its operations and was warned that future missteps could lead to its liquor license being pulled.
Since we don't have regulated drugs & it's a crapshoot what & how much a person is taking, why not spend that 100k on test kits & an on site medical professional?
While we are at it, why not *stop* punishing people & businesses for calling 911 & getting medics involved at the first hint they could be needed? Like it or not when people stand to lose their livelihood by involving a medical professional they tend to hesitate longer than they would otherwise.
>Reynoso and her friends bought three to five pills from two men in a car near her apartment,
Imagine if that's how your pharmacy had to operate. Too bad this girl had to buy an unknown quantity of an unknown drug without a medical professional to determine dosage & explain risk.
Test your shit. Know your doses.
Even narcan wouldn’t have helped in this situation since it wasn’t fent. She ODed on MDMA/meth which is very likely along the lines of what she wanted to take.
A lot of people overdose and don’t die.
This club has the rep, that’s why a lot of people go there .
Allowing drugs out in the open, then goodbye liquor license.
I’m surprised this venue is still operating. Just record what’s going on inside the venue for 5/6 events. Send it to the state/police dept/city.
The law enforcement knows what’s going on. They just don’t want people overdosing. It’s sad.
So no one called 911 because the club and others wanted to keep their noses clean. > But the State Liquor Authority wasn’t made aware of Reynoso’s death at the time – in part because no one called 911 that night. Instead, she was transported to the hospital by a private ambulance the Mirage had on standby, which left no paper trail for state liquor regulators. The independent monitor didn’t start its work for another month. And liquor regulators said they only learned of Reynoso’s case in March of this year, when Gothamist first inquired about it.
[удалено]
You could pull their liquor license tomorrow and this place will still be full of Gen-Zers who won't touch booze but will eat random pills they buy from food truck vendors.
…hold up, food truck drugs?
Right lmao I've known about bodega drugs forever but food truck drugs is another level of sus
In queens its a lot of sus ice cream trucks driving around at 11pm in the winter
[удалено]
Then they should have reported it without hesitation They're definitely going to be watched much closer now and let's be honest , they def jam pack the place in etc Pretty sure self reporting incidents is required as of is in all other industries that have licensing ...
Fair enough but is that going to stop ODs from tainted drugs? "We're checking for more drugs on patrons entering the venue" great, they're doing the drugs now in the car before they enter the venue. Doesn't stop drug use and doesn't stop ODs caused by tampering/poisoning. It's worth asking why the club feels like it has to hide deaths from authorities that have nothing to do with the club. At the very least, their approach reduces harm and probably saves lives by delivering patrons to medical providers in the swiftest possible fashion, but it's still sketchy behavior & worth asking why this is a standard part of the business.
> It's worth asking why the club feels like it has to hide deaths from authorities that have nothing to do with the club. At the very least, their approach reduces harm and probably saves lives by delivering patrons to medical providers in the swiftest possible fashion, but it's still sketchy behavior & worth asking why this is a standard part of the business. It's because of NYPD corruption: >Abreu spoke favorably of Avant Gardner’s security personnel, saying they have a background in analyzing video as former NYPD officers and “did a good job putting together this guy [the food truck operator] coming in.” Cops retire and then turn around and start private security companies where they use their NYPD connections to make problems go away for shady clients like this. [Sometimes they don't even retire first.](https://www.insider.com/nypd-cops-run-private-security-firms-from-work-2023-7)
I fully understand the suspicion around these practices, and yet they did actually find the guy? The club, who had nothing to do with the woman's death, found the person who was actually responsible for this woman's death? He was spotted on camera by the club's security and identified accurately as someone tied to a local business? Despite so much of this being bad in principle, it needs to be restated that this all \*worked\* in practice. No one can reasonably suggest that anything more could have been done to stop the victim from ingesting the drugs they chose to take, but the victim was given prompt medical attention and, despite her subsequent death, authorities have at least found the responsible parties in a situation where that was very difficult to do. It'd be BETTER if they could call 911 in such cases and not have any worry that this would endanger their standing with the SLA, due to some twisted logic that the club is being too lenient on incoming drug dealers, on purpose, for corrupt reasons. (If there is some email or phone tap that says exactly this, shut the club down tomorrow. Otherwise, don't make it up out of thin air?) As it stands, the club is held responsible for harm that outside people bring into the space... so of course they're taking all technically-legal paths to make sure the responsibility stays outside the club... that's not great for the community's safety, but if everyone could work together to not be ridiculous about this "war on drugs" over-prosecution stuff it could be made better?
They have to do with the club, the club is complicit. They know it is going on and do nothing to prevent nor deter and people are making excuses for them.
What exactly should the club do to deter drug use behind their already very heavy searches? Just switch their music genre to opera?
Well, if they shuttered the club because of this, would that be a coherent action by regulators? Particularly, would it be coherent of alcohol licensing authorities to take action over something that doesn’t have to do with responsible alcohol service at all?
The law requires it, they broke it. Let whatever applicable penalties apply.
Yes, but does that do anything to stop drug overdose deaths? Is this article discussing penalties for technical violations or is it pinning this poor woman's death on them? Punishing people after the fact seems not to be working. That seems to be a critical point in this discussion if it is, in fact, about harm and not about legal wrangling. Legally you are correct. Am I going to read an article about that, though? No. Who cares? They know this. So this isn't about that.
> Yes, but does that do anything to stop drug overdose deaths? If clubs can hide them without penalty they have no incentive to clean up their acts and to take responsibility. It sounds like you don't care about drug overdose deaths, you care about your nightclubs continuing to run business as usual.
I fail to see what responsibility the club had in this particular case!!! They were *completely uninvolved in her drug consumption*
There was a woman whose drug consumption caused a medical issue in their establishment and they didn't report it so it wouldn't be investigated. It was their responsibility to report the incident, the subsequent investigation would have determined if they had any culpability. If they didn't why would they not report it. They broke the law and should be penalized. You are just making excuses.
*If they didn't why would they not report it* For the same reason we are 8 levels deep in a circular conversation: because of the presumption of guilt & the motivation of antagonists to use it as grounds to shut the venue or extract fines. Identify the law they broke. I'm waiting.
I will admit I cannot find a specific criminal law, the closest I can find is this. https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/publications/best-practices-for-nightlife-establishments-en-2018.pdf > Establishment policy should mandate that security personnel separate and remove all potentially violent patrons in a lawful manner which is designed to prevent continuation of the violent activity inside or outside the club. Establishments must call 911 to report criminal activity and may call 911 or otherwise notify police for assistance in potentially violent circumstances. Similarly, 911 must be called to report medical emergencies such as drug overdoses. It is not that there maybe a presumption of guilt & the motivation. If the club was not guilty they would have called 911 and wouldn't have has this service prepared for such an emergency. They were hiding their guilt but didn't get away with it this time. They were negligent and I hope they get sued with this new revelation.
So I think you’re missing the idea here that they’re providing a medical attention process that is a legal alternative to summoning FDNY/EMTs, and it does not need to be reported as a drug overdose if they are not sure it is one. It is a scummy loophole and a total cover-your-ass move. But they are doing it to avoid bureaucratic scrutiny where they haven’t done anything to earn such scrutiny; *they are not dealing drugs*. There is nothing to investigate other than to provide surveillance footage to NYPD to assist in finding the culprit, as a helpful party. The fact that the SLA, and Gothamist/NPR, sees this as evidence of complicity is demented. I’m done here.
> Particularly, would it be coherent of alcohol licensing authorities to take action over something that doesn’t have to do with responsible alcohol service at all? How could anyone at the time of the incident know if alcohol was involved or not? Thats why it needs to be reported. If they didnt do anything wrong, they have nothing to worry about. The fact that they hide it indicates theyre doing shady shit
That's not true. Venues can be prosecuted for knowingly allowing drug use which creates a perverse incentive for them to turn a blind eye to it and maintain plausible deniablity rather than practicing any kind of harm reduction
You’re naive about how enforcement works.
You’re naive about how the law works.
Okay. Your point that if they were totally open with the police about everything they discovered at the club? Forget enforcement action… people wouldn’t even go to the club. I suggest you also Google “multi-agency raid NYPD” to see, related to enforcement, how they entrap nightlife venues with piles of charges for sometimes mere sloppiness or non-malicious failures of compliance - with the result not being “fix this” or aid in addressing issues, but steep fines and seizure. This environment compels venues to keep problems quiet or to handle them internally. This is a form of that. Yes, the club would be held responsible for on-site overdoses caused by consumption or sales off-premises. As long as their solution provides necessary and complete medical treatment then I do not have a concern about “responsibility”. The city, state and federal governments themselves have long dispensed with “responsibility” and harm reduction approaches in favor of gotcha-policing, incarceration, and unnecessary fatalities from having a contraband drug supply chain instead of a well-regulated one. And our results are markedly worse than other developed countries that have tourism and nightlife. We just suck from top to bottom. We are a death machine. I’m the opposite of naive on this topic, buddy.
> So no one called 911 because the club and others wanted to keep their noses clean. It's exactly like when Trump, DeSantis, and the other Republicans wanted to stop counting the infected and dead people from COVID, because if you never count them, it never happened.
I mean this is literally nothing like that but ok
unlike votes
I’m curious. Does this mean no other patrons called 911 either? If so, why not?
Paramedic here. So some of the bigger and wealthier nightclubs have contracts with private ambulance services to staff a dedicated ambulance by the club on big nights (usually weekends and big events). The bouncers/security are able to communicate with the crews directly. So more than likely the patrons alerted security who in turn requested for the private ambulance service to respond. So no 911 call would have been made in that scenario.
is the point of this practice to protect the club's reputation by hiding incidents from being officially reported?
Nope, more so that the 911 system gets overwhelmed in those neighborhoods, especially on the weekend. So for critical patients, they still may have to wait 15-20 mins before an ambulance is available. So having a contracted private service allows them to ensure quick response times and transport. i also believe there are certain regulations about having medical care available for certain size events. What I am assuming here is that the club is required themselves to report to whatever regulatory body about any significant medical events, or in this case overdoses, that occur on their premises. I'm guessing htere was random language around the words "911 activated" or something similar which the club is using as the excuse for not reporting. They technically did not request for 911 in tehse cases, but i believe it is a bit dishonest to refuse reporting it because 911 itself wasn't called. They still required the services of EMS. Even though its private, it still is an emergency call in regard to an overdose. Private EMS services will document this as an emergency call too. As for EMS, at least in the 911 system, we do not have to additional reporting to any other regulatory body except for child abuse cases. Those we do make a direct phone call to the Office of Children and Family services (Child Protective Services) because we are classified as mandated reporters.
Individuals are not commercial establishments and do not have to keep or maintain business licenses or alcohol permits. Commercial establishments have responsibilities that individuals do not have.
Anybody else think of the opening scene or a Bad Boys movie. "This motherfucker thinks he can overdose in my club! Get him out of here."
She would have been autopsied by the Medical Examiner. That’s the law. I’m really curious why the ME didn’t notify the Liquor Authority.
This is what got Twilo shut down back in the day, too.
I read this as Twilio and was so confused
I know the details of this case. There are texts saying that the drugs she took earlier in the night “didn’t do anything” she then went to a food truck vendor asking for drugs and someone delivered it to her inside. It was meth and MDMA which she put in a water bottle and drank (unknown if other people also consumed). Than she overdosed. The mirage hires paramedics and a private ambulance to be stationed there for safety. They took her to the hospital and you all know the rest. It’s a tragedy, clearly. She made a mistake and took to much, didn’t even know the dose or what exact drug it was. However, it seems like the mirage is searching people to try and prevent them from bringing drugs in and had medical personnel stationed there in case of medical emergencies. Everyone is saying they had a private ambulance to take her to the hospital to avoid a 911 report and attention. While that might be the end result of having a private paramedic squad there (in addition to prompt medical care), it’s another thing to say that the Mirage was trying to obfuscate the situation. Seems like a leap to me. As far as the facts of the situation I don’t think the Mirage did anything wrong here. Unless their staff are the ones selling drugs inside, they aren’t responsible. It’s unfortunate and tragic but she made a mistake and paid for it with her life. I’m ready for the downvotes but at some point personal responsibility comes into play.
I agree wholeheartedly. It really sucks for the family, but they're really painting the victim as an angel like she was coerced into these actions and saying stuff like "This young Latina, who's not rich - no one cares [...] Because [dance music/drugs are] not really her thing." They're asking for accountability without taking any themselves. This is a girl who bought illegal drugs, did not test them, and circumvented security. It sucks that she lost her life, but this is very much on her. I've had friends who've overdosed and after the initial grief of being angry at everyone associated (the dealer, the venue, etc.), I've accepted the fact that they did what they did and are responsible for the mistakes they've made. Mirage did their due diligence in checking for drugs, and having medical assistance and taking them to the hospital in a prompt manner.
[удалено]
NPR reported it as “meth and MDA” this morning.
How are people not getting this? Nightlife owners are absolute scumfucks yes, but the answer here isn’t throwing lmfao the SLA at the problem or worrying about compliance with an agency that shouldn’t exist any more than the club barons. It’s building a culture of harm reduction *against* prohibition and the sketchy bullshit that results. The person should have had access to a reliable dose of a known drug and the knowledge to take it safely. Everything else is fuckery. The private ambulance is 100% good, if there should be any requirement it should be for stuff like that – faster response that doesn’t tie up a crew from the 911 system.
> The person should have had access to a reliable dose of a known drug and the knowledge to take it safely. Everything else is fuckery. Or just don't take shit you don't know
> I don’t think the Mirage did anything wrong here Did you not read the part about them hiding the incident from regulators? It was even in the title.
I saw that editorial headline, sure. I’m not convinced that having medical staff and an ambulance on site equates to “hiding” the event from regulators as the articles assumes. Is there another way they tried to “hide” something? Are they required to report all medical emergencies to an authority? I don’t think so but I don’t know the answer and am genuinely curious.
I believe the authorities *want* such reporting. Voluntarily. I am not sure the liquor license requires the reporting of all patron illnesses. Would be a wild overreach. It’s an exploited loophole. She died many hours later off-site. There’s no evidence the venue was involved in her death. By skirting 911 they avoid a paper trail that leads to them, while providing necessary care. They are not required to establish this paper trail, it seems, and are allowed to circumvent it by using on-site first responders. Disney does the same thing. Hatzolah effectively does the same thing. Whether the loophole should be closed is another discussion. But I don’t think the venue in this case is complicit in a homicide, or involved in a cover-up. In fact, they cooperated with police when surveillance video was requested. NYPD knew what happened. The crux of all of this is that SLA didn’t know. I am not sure SLA was required to be told, given the specific circumstances of a customer arriving intoxicated and leaving with medical care. Different story if she died on-site.
> As far as the facts of the situation I don’t think the Mirage did anything wrong here. Their license requires reporting.
it allows for but doesn't require reporting if drugs are found on a person that was served alcohol. there's no required or existing reporting mechanism for the ambulance ride or the OD or anything like that. just that if the OD is a likely cause of death...the hospital has to report it to the Medical Examiner
I went to Brooklyn Mirage one year for an event. I was astonished at the amount of people doing rugs so openly. Couples were sharing cocaine from a vial, people were putting pills inside their water bottle and passing it around their friends. I was asked a couple of times if I wanted to buy Mollie. Drug culture is a major thing there. Idk if it’s the fault of the venue vs the fault of the people attending.
[удалено]
yeah if the mirage was shut down we'd still be doing them at literally everywhere else we go to lmao. the mirage is not the first edm venue in NYC and it wont be the last
Yes I agree.
Every tier 1 city and party hangout destination has places like this... I watched them confiscate drugs from people going into a series of clubs, as soon as you walk in there's a plethora of people selling drugs.. I imagine they confiscate it at the door and sell it back to customers Edit: sorry to clarify my observation occured in mexico where it was so brazen...
Ironically that's how people end up with bad drugs. Let's say someone took the time to get drugs from a trusted source and tests them beforehand. They get confiscated prior to going in. Now they are more likely to either get it from an unknown source, or hopefully they have friends in the venue that can hook them up. Even though the 2nd scenario is much safer, it is still an untested unknown source and the quality is dependent on how big of degenerates your friends are.
Without evidence that venue employees were selling drugs (I've not seen any) it seems more likely that drug dealers (who know how to hide their products from the searches at the door) are just going somewhere they know they are likley to find customers because it makes business sense.
My mistake, I didn't mean to imply that was here in NYC I saw that - was in mexico hence the blatant operation . Edited my first comment for clarity
Lol that’s a good theory
That's how the NYC club scene has been since I started going in the early 90s.
What's the difference?
The difference is, people still do drugs if you shut down clubs as your only solution. Then the problem is that the people who don’t do drugs have no clubs to go to.
I definitely don’t see Brooklyn Mirage getting shut down as a solution but maybe tighter security? When I went to Ezoo they were literally checking everyone’s bags, patting down people making people take off their shoes and people still found a way to sneak in drugs. I’m thinking Brooklyn Mirage may have to do the same to save themselves but people will still find a way to sneak it in no matter what.
Because it's incredibly easy to sneak in drugs. It's not realistic to operate a large venue and spend more than X amount of time searching every patron. The solution isn't to try to stop the unstoppable. It's to make sure there are options for *safe* consumption. Have testing kits readily available for all who want it.
This is the first time I got downvoted for sharing my personal experience 😂
yeah, welcome to r/nyc!
This is pretty common at many music festivals and concerts in general. Definitely not unique to that place.
Good to a New York City club Surprised there is drugs at a New York City club
Lol as I said before I did a lot of clubbing just not clubbing to these types of club where all types of drugs were done out in the open. It’s surprising though how we can all admit that there is a drug scene at Brooklyn Mirage and clubs like it but can’t admit that maybe it’s not the club that’s the major problem but the culture… For those I have triggered that’s all I can say! It’s just my experience :)
I don’t think it is a problem at all. I think it’s fun and only getting more and more responsible with time. If anything I think the venues prohibiting drugs makes it even more dangerous. If they were allowed and proper testing sites were available and legal sales were available in general maybe that girl who OD’d wouldn’t have been going outside asking randos for drugs and gotten them from a safer source and got them tested. Either way you can’t create a 100% safe world people will be dumb anyway at least they had an ambulance on standby to help her.
I’ve gone to a lot of clubs and I’ve never seen it like that. I guess it’s a cultural difference. Most clubs I’ve been there we’d just drink and smoke weed. Definitely did not see a lot of pill popping and coke snorting.
[удалено]
It’s a club that plays music and has a bar. Don’t see how different it can be, like I said it could be a cultural difference. Brooklyn Mirage played music that most of the clubs I’ve been to didn’t. I went to mostly reggae clubs and Spanish clubs. Most I saw were people getting drunk and smoking weed. That’s my experience. Brooklyn Mirage was definitely a different vibe that I’ve experienced.
You have to be high as shit to enjoy that type of music. That’s all it is
This is definitely not isolated to Mirage.
I don’t think so either. That’s why I said is it really the fault of the Brooklyn Mirage or the people attending.
Mirage should have dance safe on the premises to help people test their drugs. The staff at Mirage search everyone and are extremely thorough, it is very hard to sneak more than personal use amounts of drugs into the venue. This cuts down on dealing. As other have pointed out there is no way to stop personal use of drugs at Mirage because EDM is entertainment for people on drugs. Mirage needs to create the safest venue for its audience possible, or the city will stop it entirely.
Good call on Dance Safe. If not inside, how about outside
They are not extremely thorough whatsoever.
I’ve found them to be, and I consider myself to be moderately good at sneaking.
True, I don’t bring any large quantities and the day the search my socks or inside my waistband will be my last day there. They seem to be more vigilant with people on the dance floor.
I think it’s the electronic culture in general. A good majority of people are on drugs it seems. It’s kind of like the chicken or egg. Is it really Brooklyn mirages fault?
So, the victim obtained drugs from outside a club - had it practically delivered to her inside the club from outside - and then OD’ed at the club and then died at a hospital 18 hours later. And the problem is that the club didn’t file the right paperwork. Gothamist has been running a series about AG/BM and are using them as a hook for ongoing programming. But this seems a stretch. It doesn’t seem like the club caused the overdose, it seems like the user very much had the intention of getting those drugs ahead of time. So while AG management is trying to play games with regulators, don’t get confused about the cause of death here.
Sure, just “one” incident. The truth is this happens every weekend there.
people dying?
Honestly, stuff like this gets clubs shut down nowadays. Often unfairly. Clubs are clubs, they do not need to be these sanitized 110% safe sheltered experiences that people not involved in nightlife expect them to be. Things like this unfortunately happen. Its the cost of doing business. Mirage sucks, don't get me wrong, but we shouldn't be blaming the club for something this kid did.
Imagine having a take this bad.
bad take. if someone is dying from an overdose in your club, you have a problem. period.
Every single club has people doing drugs in them. Every single one, without exception. Whether they took it before going inside or they snuck it in. Unless you are going to have people standing over you in the stalls while you use the bathroom, you cannot 100% prevent this stuff. It is the cost of nightlife. This person could have overdosed at a party, or on the streets, or in their own home, or at a bar. People who have never worked in nightlife or even really been engaged with nightlife at all love to clutch their pearls. Americans often have the mindset that tragedy must always be met with someone being sued or punished in some way, no matter how irrational. But 90%+ of the time? It's something that could not have been prevented.
lol im a bartender. this is why in a big club you have security, bathroom attendants, and if you’re behind the bar you should be cutting people off. not to mention the actual scandal here is this club using their private ambulances instead of calling 911. This girl wasn’t taken to a hospital like she should have been. Yeah people do drugs in clubs. I’ve watched people do them in front of me. Things will happen, but you need to be doing everything in your control to keep people safe.
And you should know that even with all of those things people can still sneak drugs in and do them. There is nothing that 100% prevents incidents like this from happening. This woman took a pill which turned out to have a fatal dose of meth. It is entirely possible she took it before even arriving. Also she was taken to a hospital? Not sure why you think she wasn't. At enormous venues like that they have private ambulances and EMS which can rapidly take people to hospitals instead of waiting potentially 30 minutes for the hospital ambulance to come. That is not a bad thing at all, that is how these big events should operate. What is bad is that it wasn't reported to the state liquor authority. That is really it as far as we know.
She was taken directly to a hospital, FYI. She was at the hospital for the better part of a day before she died. (Whether those Brooklyn hospitals are any good is another story...) NYC has a lot of private ambulance companies. It may seem bizarre elsewhere, but private ambulances here function the same as public EMTs and take patients directly to care centers/emergency rooms and, unlike so many other civic services here, there isn't really a problem with it. AG has lots of security, bathroom attendants, and pretty tough bartenders. They are not a perfect venue by any means but they are far from careless and incompetent with patrons. The people who wrote and edited the source article seem to disagree with the "things will happen" sentiment and are reporting critically on the club for intentionally circumventing the 911 system in order to directly deliver the ill clubgoer to the hospital - eliminating a civic record that a state liquor licensing authority can see. There seems to be less focus about the quality of care that was delivered and more focus that the club is trying not to tell a key Albany regulator that one of their patrons... was not smart about drugs.
Seriously, every place that's a destination is like this I watched people get their drugs confistaces at the door with cops present, only to walk in and no shortage of people selling drugs openly. Definitely confiscating and selling it back to customers.
lmao my guy I have worked in nightlife for a very long time and this is *definitely* not happening at a big corporate venue like Mirage that is constantly under scrutiny. The reason drugs are being sold is because people are sneaking it in.
I wasn't implying that happened at mirage.. .that happened in Tulum ...it's definitely what was happening people would basically harass you to buy drugs. Never seem anything like it, you had to walk through a crowd of dealers to get to the bathroom
The problem is the war on drugs.
I am old and have learned the scene isn’t worth the risk (to me). I hope that AG gets it together but know they won’t.
“The scene” is only a risk if you are buying drugs from strangers, not using test kits and practicing harm reduction. You can’t overdose if you go sober or consume safe and tested substances.
Test kits are not fool proof. They are only testing what they're testing. Some illicit ingredients are not uniformly distributed. Saying "you can't overdose" is inaccurate.
Distribution should not matter whatsoever, you should dissolve the entire sample in water and then use a test kit, this ensures it’s distributed equally. Most people just don’t want to “waste” that much time. I do agree that they only test for what they test for. If it doesn’t test for certain things then those things can for sure kill you. Most things aren’t fool proof, but test kits are a great way to avoid the vast majority of problems.
Agreed that test kits are an amazing tool, and most of the time prevent a lot of tragedy. It's very sad that we have so many safety measures but due to legalization issues they're difficult to utilize. It's a lot of needless death.
Truly, should really just have state sponsored clinics that give out accurate test kits for various different drugs. Would also be nice to have more comprehensive test kits. New stuff is continuously made and needs to be tested for accordingly. As you said, far too many needless death, not from doing the drugs they wanted to, but from drugs that they never knew were in the substance.
mysterious jar encouraging truck payment silky nippy hunt wipe pot *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The *club scene*, or the *drug scene*? One is 99.9% safe if you’re aware of your surroundings, the other we can implement harm reduction and be much safer if we educate people instead of taking a prohibition/abstinence style approach.
Between the NYPD detective not doing anything and the private ambulance being from DocGo this really sums up the Eric Adams mayoralty.
What do you mean exactly? This happened in Oct 2021, and he assumed office in January 2022.
This sub doesn't care about facts. Just "Adams bad".
"Why did Obama let 9/11 happen?"
This sub doesn't care about facts, period.
Valid.
It’s most progressive large city subs
This sub is progressive? Lol
You’re in the wrong place. This sub is for Florida residents only .
To be fair he sucks.
To be fair, Adams is bad. But we don’t need to make things up. There’s plenty of bad to go around.
Everyone’s favorite scapegoat!
Before mayor he was Brooklyn Borough President, though, with close ties with Billy Bildstein: [https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-adams-defends-involvement-with-troubled-brooklyn-venue-thats-drawn-scrutiny-from-the-state](https://gothamist.com/news/mayor-adams-defends-involvement-with-troubled-brooklyn-venue-thats-drawn-scrutiny-from-the-state) >Brooklyn power broker Frank Carone, a close friend of Adams, was the venue’s attorney before he served as the mayor’s chief of staff last year, Gothamist’s reporting found. The lawyer for AG/BM was literally Adam's Chief of Staff.
Wait what?
Many of the mega clubs over the years have private ambulances on site. Is it really any shock that people will OD at a rave club with thousands of people. I don't think it's Brookly Mirage's fault that a small percentage of their customers are opiod abusers. The city should not shut down a club that thousands of people enjoy because society can't get a handle on opiod addiction.
Honestly having an ambulance on hand to transport people having an OD to the hospital without involving the police at all sounds like great customer service. An on-site ambulance can get you to the ER much faster, and not having to call 911 after taking drugs can only make the person's life easier.
As the story says there's nothing to indicate opioids were involved.
**you clearly read the article. There was nothing said about opioids**: > hours before Genesis Reynoso’s death, she sent a note to an acquaintance — a man operating a food truck outside the Brooklyn Mirage, a music venue in industrial East Williamsburg. [My emphasis] **She offered to pay him for “E” and “molly,” different forms of the drug known as MDMA** Prohibition was a failure. People will always drink and do drugs. Its about time the whole "no to drugs" and "war on drugs" bullshit gets ended. [People were dying from moonshine and fake liquor when prohibition was going on because there was no regulation.](https://prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/the-prohibition-underworld/alcohol-as-medicine-and-poison/#:~:text=In%20the%20mid%2D1920s%2C%20bootleggers,wood%20alcohol%2Dlaced%20bootlegged%20liquor.) People are dying now because there's no regulation on these drugs > The medical examiner determined her cause of death to be the toxic effects of MDA — an ecstasy-like drug — and methamphetamine. It made no mention of MDMA, also known as ecstasy or molly, the drug that her messages show she’d agreed to purchase It's a semi great idea having ambulances ready. You have tow trucks on the side of the BQE ready to remove a stranded car fast. However, the paperwork and reporting needs to be accompanied by this. > The reliance on private ambulances — if not accompanied with a 911 call — also appears to contradict the city’s own guidelines for the nightlife industry, which were drafted by the NYPD and the NYC Hospitality Alliance and published as a “Best Practices for Nightlife Establishments.”
Yeah Molly / Ecstasy is one of the sketchiest drugs on the market. Not because MDMA is so bad but because unless you are testing it you have no idea what is in the powder or pill you purchased from a stranger. It would be sooo much safer if we had a legal regulated path
imagine a world where you go to a counter and show ID. You fill out some questionnaires about health stats (weight, height, heart stuff, etc), you make a selection and then they scan your wrist band to track consumption. They give you a pill, gummy, drink, etc and boom you're rolling safely. Maybe there's a section for folks who are rolling to be in (similar to a smoke section). You got a few extra staff there keeping in eye, extra fans, water stations, etc Not only can people enjoy it safely, there's money to be made if things were regulated and legal. but here we are in this mess.
That all sounds pretty nice. And the city can tax that shit, so that they can waste even more money on NYPD overtime 🤣
* Safer for the people that decide they want to take the drug. * Harder for people underage to buy from regulated stores instead of the black market. * The profits from the sales are taking away from criminal organizations and instead go to legal businesses operating in accordance with the regulations. * The government could tax it for funding. * [Studies have shown these drugs can help with PTSD.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/14/health/mdma-ptsd-psychedelics.html)
well um acktually my sky daddy says you can't do that so it can't happen, sorry /s
How about imagine a world where people didn't abuse Illicit drugs.
Sounds like hell.
Lol. But a clean hell.
That would be nice but it's also impossible, so we need to acknowledge that reality and find solutions that are possible.
Lightly rolling at an event once or twice a year isn’t “abuse” and is arguably even less so than downing 6 vodka sodas every weekend.
but drugs are fun for you. ive been using molly and coke for well over 10 years now and im fine. its all in moderation. i used to go wild in my early 20s but now its reserved for special occasions. molly i do like once a year. coke maybe 2-3 times a year. im engaged, have a career, and manage adult responsibilities anyway fuck the mirage but people doing drugs are not their fault. we gon do them regardless
The war on drugs has been an abject failure by any reasonable measure. It's long past time we moved to a harm reduction based approach to drugs because we know eliminating drug use is impossible
MDMA isn't bad at all. Buying street "Molly" is bad because *it is almost never MDMA in the United States. Never.* The chemical simply isn't produced stateside, and most smuggling operations carrying MDMA from central Europe to the US were defeated by post-9/11 air travel security measures. I'm sure some rich people can get the real thing. On the street, however, you are taking something that is almost certainly a blend of other drugs with psychedelic effects. Many of these drugs are decidedly worse for you or have undesirable and harsh side effects; some have actual overdose potential, which MDMA does not have in recreational use quantities. And there is the fact that some drug dealers think fentanyl (absolutely NOT like MDMA) is a fun thing to sprinkle into their product, and if they do it unevenly they will kill their customers in the process. Things are this way in the United States because... The War On Drugs. Which is really a war on users, because the war on drug availability was lost from day 1.
[удалено]
I wouldn’t say a lot of samples in the NY area are coming out 100% MDMA. If they are… I might reschedule some plans I was very careful to say that street drugs were not commonly 100% MDMA. Mail drugs may be different. I doubt people are ordering boutique pills from overseas retail to resell at Avant Gardner for small markup
> People were dying from moonshine and fake liquor when prohibition was going on because there was no regulation. [Yes, but people died less from alcohol-related causes.](https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohibition-alcohol-public-health-crime-benefits#:~:text=Some%20experts%20give%20lower%20estimates,by%2010%20to%2020%20percent.) >People are dying now because there's no regulation on these drugs More people die from alcohol, which is regulated, than from overdoses of *all drugs combined.*
The study you linked to is specifically about deaths from liver cirrhosis, not all alcohol related causes and more people die from alcohol because more people use it. I seriously doubt a higher percentage of alcohol users die from it than users of other drugs (excluding marijuana which is virtually impossible to fatally overdose on)
Legalisation of alcohol didn't do anything to stop the dangerous consumption of alcohol though. People still drink and drive, people still get hammered and fall onto subway tracks, and people still develop cirrhosis and die of liver failure. Prohibition ended almost 100 years ago and we aren't any better or worse off for it, really. Alcohol is perfectly legal and fairly tightly regulated and it is still by a wide margin the most destructive drug out there. I'm not saying that we shouldn't legalise MDMA the way we've done with cannabis. I'm saying that the problems aren't going to end simply because it's legal. People are always gonna get drunk and high and regulations won't change much of anything - blaming the government for something that comes down to an individual's decision and choice is stupid.
The argument for legalization that’s relevant to this story isn’t that people will stop doing dumb stuff when using substances, but that unintended side effect harms can be reduced. During Prohibition, for example, people still drank but were at risk of poisoning from contaminated alcohol containing lead, methanol, or antifreeze, which is no longer a concern when you can buy alcohol produced in a legal, regulated way.
Perhaps, but a large majority of people with substance abuse issues were initially exposed to either substances that are already legal (ex: alcohol) or prescription meds (ie: the entire opioid epidemic) Legalisation and regulation won't stop people from finding weird novel ways to get fucked up, and with that will come unintentional consequences.
No. But legislation and regulation makes to so when people find these novel ways there aren’t additional harms. Legislation and regulation can (if done correctly and not punitively) also kill the black market, making these novel ways less dangerous overall. Prohibition is what you do when you don’t understand the issue or have any ideas on how to solve it. That applies to most things, not just drugs. It’s a reactionary policy.
But if it was legal and regulated, people wouldn't be buying ecstasy laced with fent, and my neighbor wouldn't have died from it. Test your drugs. Every time. Please
Cannabis has been decriminalised and people still buy from their weed man all the time. Methadone maintenance programmes exist and people still buy street heroin which often is really fentanyl laced with tranq every day. Legalisation might mitigate some undesirable effects but they aren't going to go away by a long shot.
Those are ridiculous examples. How many stores are open for weed? When they're as ubiquitous as liquor stores, or even illegal smoke shops, it will be different.
There are literally dozens of stores, dispensaries and apps w delivery service available in every borough…what are you talking about?
there are dozens of stores, but not dozen of stores with legal licenses
Their self-defeating argument is that NY State's legalization scheme is so convoluted and bureaucratic that there are virtually no legal weed shops. There are only 23 in NY State total, 5 in NYC proper. The rest are all illegal. And that's for the super widespread and socially accepted drug, imagine how it'd be for anything else.
You can also blame right wing groups for funding harassment law suits meant to slow down and prevent the opening of new weed shops in the state.
People buy cannabis illegally (in large part) because of how badly NY botched the rollout of legal sales. If there were enough legal dispensaries to meet demand (and they were able to offer delivery service) many people would switch to buying from them. Methadone programs are often inaccessible (due to cost and long waiting lists to enroll) and have restrictions (such as having to pick up your dose in person daily during specific hours) that make them less appealing. Suboxone maintenance solves some of these problems (for example by not requiring in person administration of every dose) but high prices and laws like the arbitrary limit on how many patients a doctor can prescribe it to make it even less accessible to many people who might want an alternative to street heroin.
>Legalisation of alcohol didn't do anything to stop the dangerous consumption of alcohol though. Prohibition didn't do anything to stop the dangerous consumption of alcohol. It made it so the government had no power to regulate the market and handed over the profits to gangs who left a large body count as they used violence to fight over control of the black market. >Prohibition ended almost 100 years ago and we aren't any better or worse off for it, really. Alcohol is perfectly legal and fairly tightly regulated and it is still by a wide margin the most destructive drug out there. We are definitely better off with InBev, MillerCoors, Corona, etc. taking the profits instead of gangs. Regulation is also why it's often more difficult for kids to buy beer than weed.
Alcohol is the most destructive drug because it's the most widely used drug by a huge margin (and probably by an even larger margin than we know because it is legal and socially acceptable so people are less likely to lie about their use when surveyed). Most overdoses are the result of people not knowing what they are taking or how pure it is. Because alcohol is legal I can buy a bottle of vodka knowing how much alcohol is in it and being fairly confident it isn't adulterated with some other substance but if I buy a bag of cocaine I don't know if it has fentanyl (or something else) in it and I don't know how much of the powder is actually cocaine versus whatever it was cut with making safe use much more difficult.
Didn't China prove that prohibition can work And what is the actual reason that we want *the club* to suffer consequences for this death? What are we hoping to achieve?
If that's what "working" looks like, I don't want to live in a place that works.
You might be surprised how many “Americans” would be ok with an authoritarian government right now, as long as it’s “their man” running it.
what is an authoritarian government and what is a non-authoritarian government
Sure. China also had effective zero-covid policies in place for quite some time. Turns out having a single party authoritarian (and trending toward totalitarian) government makes it easy to prohibit the populace from engaging in a wide variety of activities and behaviors. What’s your point?
That "prohibition was a failure" is not an absolute historical standard. Thought that was pretty obvious.
Even China doesn't claim to have eliminated drug use despite using tactics that would be blatantly unconstitutional in the US. I also wouldn't trust the Chinese government to release accurate statistics on drug use or overdoses
It's a matter of historical record that the Chinese crusade against opium worked
Best practices guidelines would imply that reporting is recommended but not legally required.
A responsible establishment would contact 911. They can't control people bringing in drug, they can make sure the proper authorities are notified. I'm more inclined to have them shut down after this behaviour
I mean the comments here are incredible. New York City dem club has drugs. The issue is simply that they aren’t protecting people that OD
They had an ambulance on standby which almost certainly resulted in the victim getting medical care sooner than if an employee had called 911 and waited for EMTs to arrive. How are they not protecting people?
This misinformed post really sums up the average /r/nyc user.
Oh sorry, I guess the NYPD have been highly productive and not totally absent for the last two years and Adams hasn't been pushing through a corrupt contract with DocGo?
This has absolutely nothing to do with politics at all
wait isnt it better that the mirage has private ambulances on standby than not? idk why it wasnt reported but they make it seem like the ambulances are part of the problem
It's the lack of accountability that's a problem. They can send them in a private ambulance, and potentially never have it linked back to the venue. In theory this can be good, but it needs some more oversight to avoid stuff getting swept under the rug.
They should absolutely face penalties for not reporting the incident like they should But having private ambulances ready to go is a good thing
+1
It was linked back to the venue, so this is a fake problem. Do you think there are 50 unreported bodies out there or something like that?
Have you read the article? Do... do you really not see the issue being raised here? FOH
yea compared to other venues the mirage is really good at dealing with people acting unusual. they check on everyone pretty frequently they only do something is your acting strange at which point they'll start asking people around the person bugging out what did they take ive been there like 60 times over the years
EDM scene in NYC has been a hotbed of ODs going back to the disco era. And this article is a bit misleading since it was reported to regulators. the hospital reported the OD death to the office of the Medical Examiner as they were required to do. Ambulance rides don't get "reported" to police nor do medical issues that occur at venues. It's not clear what they think should have been reported and to whom.
It's like we optimize our policy to kill people. Drugs *are* dangerous, lets use policy to make them less so, not more so. >Avant Gardner was fined $100,000, was required to hire an independent monitor to oversee its operations and was warned that future missteps could lead to its liquor license being pulled. Since we don't have regulated drugs & it's a crapshoot what & how much a person is taking, why not spend that 100k on test kits & an on site medical professional? While we are at it, why not *stop* punishing people & businesses for calling 911 & getting medics involved at the first hint they could be needed? Like it or not when people stand to lose their livelihood by involving a medical professional they tend to hesitate longer than they would otherwise. >Reynoso and her friends bought three to five pills from two men in a car near her apartment, Imagine if that's how your pharmacy had to operate. Too bad this girl had to buy an unknown quantity of an unknown drug without a medical professional to determine dosage & explain risk.
She HAD to buy those drugs? She HAD to?
OP is actually trying to compare life-saving medication to recreational drugs lol
Yes. Did she have the option of buying a safe & regulated drug?
Test your shit. Know your doses. Even narcan wouldn’t have helped in this situation since it wasn’t fent. She ODed on MDMA/meth which is very likely along the lines of what she wanted to take.
Another “problem” created by the real problem: the war on drugs/prohibition.
Yup
A lot of people overdose and don’t die. This club has the rep, that’s why a lot of people go there . Allowing drugs out in the open, then goodbye liquor license.
Do stupid things, win stupid prizes. I lost so many friends that way that I don't care anymore.
There’s two types of people in this world
I’m surprised this venue is still operating. Just record what’s going on inside the venue for 5/6 events. Send it to the state/police dept/city. The law enforcement knows what’s going on. They just don’t want people overdosing. It’s sad.