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Why Deny Deadheads Access?

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I am a 35-year-old, college-educated, own-my-own-business, drug-free, Orange County-residing Deadhead. Last Saturday (April 29) I headed down to the Irvine Meadows Dead show with some friends from Belgium. We hoped to buy a few tie-dyed T-shirts, maybe some food and then head home. Without concert tickets, we couldn’t even cross over the freeway bridge on Irvine Center Drive, let alone get anywhere near the concert area.

I’ve been going to Dead concerts for over 15 years, and it was the first time I’d ever been denied access to the Deadhead City in the parking lot. Therein lies the crux of the “near riot,” which I left early enough to miss. Entrance to the Deadhead community is primary, not the concert itself. Many Deadheads make their living selling crafts and food in the Deadhead City, a kind of counterculture swap meet.

In the hotbed of free enterprise and trickle-down economics, why would the city of Irvine decide to play hardball this year? Deadheads are as human and as peaceful as anyone else.

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JEFF KAHL

Corona del Mar

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