City looks to regulate pop-up parties

Chattanooga is working on an ordinance to combat an increase in unregulated "pop-up parties," gatherings of hundreds that take place within days of being advertised online.

These events often create a nuisance to neighbors and a danger to partygoers, city leaders said.

Fire department and police are worried because lack of regulation means a building designed for 50 occupants could see a flood of 300 or more people. Some recent gatherings have ended in large-scale fights, gang clashes and gunfire. And a fire in such an environment could be disastrous, officials said.

Chattanooga police Capt. Randy Dunn said the parties have been happening for at least three years, but in the last six months it seems like there is one every weekend.

City Councilman Peter Murphy said council members have learned more about the problem in recent months, but the first comprehensive presentation by both police and fire personnel was during Tuesday night's council meeting.

"Now the issue becomes: How does the City Council narrowly tailor regulation of these events?" he said.

The legal work on the ordinance starts in the office of Crystal Freiberg, assistant city attorney. Because the ordinance will address gatherings and expression, the language must meet tight criteria to avoid violating free speech and assembly rights, she said.

"The challenge for our office is to draft something that's constitutional," Ms. Freiberg said.

Capt. Dunn said police don't want to prevent parties, but simply better regulate security, insurance and health conditions at the locations.

"But when you have a party with gangs, saying 'Come one, come all,' you're inviting people who don't like each other to come together and drink," Capt. Dunn said.

The captain said most of the party invitations are posted on sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, where partygoers learn the location and time of the event.

Although officials said they're aware that some people bring their own alcohol to these parties, if the event doesn't officially serve alcohol, there is little regulation the city can do until someone calls in a complaint. By then, officers are arriving on a scene where as many as 300 to 500 people are gathered, many drunk and unruly, police said.

Capt. Dunn said as many as 20 officers sometimes respond to these large parties, leaving swaths of the city with a fraction of the coverage they would normally have. It can take hours for police to disperse the crowds, he said.

The police department's four-man crime suppression unit is sometimes able to monitor parties it learns about ahead of time, he said, "but we can't sit and wait outside these parties to see what happens; we've got a whole city to protect."

The events often get out of control even for the promoters, some of whom rent out legitimate clubs such as Club Utopia, Stepping Out and The Lower Level, he said.

There are built-in problems with large crowds at those locations, he said, but even more troublesome is when the party promoters hold the events in office suites of strip malls, beauty shops and other buildings near residential areas. These often block traffic, create nuisances for neighbors and make it difficult for police even to respond.

In January, multiple officers were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic just trying to reach the site of one of the parties, he said. One office suite in a strip mall on the 3200 block of Wilcox Boulevard had nine incident calls due to these types of gatherings from December to February, the captain said.

Chattanooga fire department officials said passing an ordinance to regulate these gatherings would help them keep abreast of changes to building usage.

"The inherent issue with pop-up parties is they're not asking permission, they're not seeking approval," Fire Chief Randy Parker said. "There's basically no control on them."

Most of the fire marshal's inspections involve looking at safety devices, occupancy limits and exit plans for the location. One example is exit doors that must open outward, which are standard for most large-venue, assembly sites, he said.

If a door opens inward and it's the only exit available, a large crowd struggling to get out might leave no room to open the door, he said.

Assistant Fire Marshal Capt. Seth Miller pointed to the nightclub fire in West Warwick, R.I., in February 2003 that killed 100 people when sparks set off during a performance by the band Great White ignited insulation in the building's walls and ceilings.

"And that building was designed with assembly in mind," Capt. Miller said.

As local procedure currently stands, fire marshals typically inspect a building when notified of a permit change or a violation of the permit. Other than that, the fire marshal isn't going to know that someone turned a 40-person occupancy vacant office suite into a spot for hundreds to gather for a party, he said.

"By the time we get there, the crowd's dispersed," Chief Parker said.

Dave Castañeda at ChattaTech, a Chattanooga-based event marketing and promotions firm, said checks for liability insurance, up-to-date inspections and security on events come with the territory. Without those checks, potential dangers abound for event attendees, he said.

"I've definitely been to shows like that where they don't take into consideration the security," he said.

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