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Nightclubs in Buenos Aires temporarily banned following festival drug deaths
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 4 May 2016
All nightclubs in Buenos Aires were ordered to shut down by a municipal judge last week, follow five drug-related deaths at the Time Warp festival in the city last month. The ban was overturned shortly afterwards, but has sparked strong debate.
Judge Roberto Gallardo ordered that “all commercial activity involving dancing with live or recorded music”, other than at tango venues and dance-related cultural events, be halted.
“How do you obey a totally unconstitutional order like this one?” complained a spokesperson for nightclub owners Jorge Becco, according to Reuters. “It’s like shutting the vegetable store because you found food poisoning at the butcher shop”.
The ban was overturned following a complaint from Buenos Aires Chief Of Government Horacio Larreta. He told La Nacion: “It was a nonsense that the judge wanted to ban all parties. What do we do? Do we close down night clubs? We know that the teens are drinking alcohol at pre-parties. Do we suspend pre-parties? So then they’re going to go out and drink on the street. Do we prohibit the use of the streets?”
Although Larreta said he did support a temporary ban on music festival permits in the city, he added that a better long term solution to drug problems in Argentina is to open “an honest discussion on the topic in schools and in the home”.
