Will the last one out of Hiroshima please switch off the lights?

Seems like the recent raid on Cover (and here) has had the kind of effect that police hoped the Barco raid would have had. With both Cover’s owner and bar manager held in custody for over a week, and one of the DJs being photographed and fingerprinted after being held in a police station all night, Hiroshima club owners, promoters, DJs and clubbers are understandably freaked.

Tonight’s planned ElectrockerH party at Edge will now be a lounge event, with no dance floor and markedly lower volume levels and finish at 1am. Edge bar is no longer taking event bookings, and it appears that at least two clubs have already made the decision to shut up shop. Rumors are flying around the Internet that many more are to follow.

Police have effectively turned the clock back 6 or 7 years when Hiroshima nightlife barely had a pulse, and in so doing have negated all the work put in by local promoters, and the club owners who have been gradually improving their premises and their sound systems. Informing people about and promoting the club scene has always been at the core of what we do at GetHiroshima so these developments are incredibly frustrating. We are keeping our eye on the situation and are in communication with other concerned parties. Some sort of campaign – though probably untimately doomed to fail – is needed to bring attention to the situation and need for a revsion of the laws concerning dancing. Clubs and clubbers are in many ways a soft target, unlikely to attract support from the average citizen, so the key to any campaign or action should be how to get these people on board.

Any ideas?