Disco Owner Calls Drug Raid a Payback

State authorities arrested five people in a drug raid at a Hollywood nightclub over the weekend, a move the club’s owner called retaliation for his efforts to make Hollywood an independent city.

“The police call this a drug raid. I call it a raid on my reputation, and I’m very disappointed,” Gene La Pietra, the leader of the failed Hollywood secession movement, said of the action Saturday at his club.

A spokesman for Mayor James K. Hahn dismissed La Pietra’s claims.

“It sounds like Gene La Pietra needs to focus more on cleaning up his businesses than on making these absurd charges,” said Matt Middlebrook, deputy mayor for policy and communications.

Among the five people arrested Saturday night on drug charges by the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control were two employees of La Pietra’s Circus Disco, said Lupe Garcia, ABC assistant director.

Over seven months at the club, investigators from ABC and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration bought more than 10,000 Ecstasy pills, worth more than $200,000 on the street, Garcia said.

ABC investigators, aided by the DEA, bought the Ecstasy, along with cocaine, marijuana and katemine, on 26 occasions from 25 individuals, Garcia said. On six occasions, club employees either facilitated or sold the drugs.

La Pietra was not arrested during the raid, and no official has called him a target of the investigation. Garcia said, however, that the ABC would look into possibly requesting penalties, such as a suspension or revocation of the club’s liquor license.

In response to La Pietra’s claim that he was targeted because of secession, Garcia said, “This is a state investigation. We initiated this over seven months ago.”

“We’ve been checking nightclubs, not only in this area, but elsewhere in the state” looking for Ecstasy sales at rave events, he said.

La Pietra said he has never had any kind of violation in more than three decades of owning the club. He also said that if the investigation began seven months ago, it was just at the time that Hollywood secessionists won their fight to put a secession measure on the Nov. 5 ballot.

At a news conference outside Circus Disco on Monday afternoon, La Pietra said he was present at the raid, which began about 11:15 p.m. Saturday. He said he saw about 100 Los Angeles Police Department officers entering his property through three gates--evidence, he said, of the city’s involvement.

LAPD spokesman Sgt. John Pasquariello said police deployed 15 uniformed officers, three plainclothes detectives and one supervisor to assist about 40 ABC investigators.

“This is entirely an ABC investigation. We had a supporting role in the service of the search warrant, as we would with any outside agency serving a warrant in the city of Los Angeles,” Pasquariello said.

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Prompted by Flier

Garcia said the investigation began when ABC investigators saw a flier on a car windshield “inviting people to a rave event at Circus.” He said investigators also found references to rave parties at the club on Internet sites.

The investigation relied, in part, on the work of Trinka D. Porrata, whom an ABC press release described as “one of the nation’s leading experts on Ecstasy and rave events.”

The ABC said Porrata visited the club and described what she saw as a rave event because of “lack of drug or weapon searches at the front door, extensive security, numerous patrons under the influence of designer drugs, the type of music, laser lighting, glow sticks, sales of water bottles and so-called power drinks with a high concentration of caffeine such as Red Bull, an outside cooling off area, and other factors.”

The press release said that caffeine enhances the Ecstasy high and “creates a super high which gives a hallucinogenic effect,” and that loud music, laser lights and glow sticks add to “the psychedelic effect.” It said water counters dehydration from Ecstasy and other designer drugs.

La Pietra said the club is not the site of raves.

“Raves are for kids, for teenagers. My club is 21 and over,” he said.

He said the club also doesn’t have a cooling off area, but does have an emergency medical technician on hand in a tent outside.

“So does Disneyland. So do a lot of churches,” he said.

As for selling the caffeinated drink Red Bull, he said it’s available everywhere, “from high schools to the Super Bowl.”

“And water! Everyone sells water,” he said. “It’s the national drink.”

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Times staff writer Andrew Blankstein contributed to this story.