
By AUGUST BROWNcontact the reporter
After two drug-related deaths on the opening night of Hard Summer music festival at the Fairplex in Pomona this weekend, festival organizers, city officials and dance music fans continue to debate the best ways to prevent such tragedies.
As major festivals like Hard Summer grow — this year, the two-day event expanded from 40,000 to 65,000 fans for each night — County Supervisor Hilda Solis has called for a temporary ban of raves on county property, a move that echoes the ban on raves at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum after a teenage girl’s drug death in 2010.
Solis said that clearly the board action back then was insufficient and that further stronger action is needed.
“We will be doing our due diligence,” she said. “Obviously this is of great concern and very tragic, and I cannot underscore how distraught it is to know two young women are going out to a concert and have to lose their lives thinking they are going to be enjoying themselves.”
“What passed on the board in 2010 may have been OK then. Things have changed now. Now we need to take a very serious look. … I will venture to say I will be doing that.”