In the wake of the Electric Zoo Music Festival controversy of the past weekend Mayor Michael Bloomberg has stepped forward with words of defense for Electric Zoo founder Mike Bindra. The annual labor day weekend music extravaganza hosted on Randall’s Island has been under intense scrutiny since the death of a 23 year old man and 21 year old woman on the second day of the festival. Although Bloomberg made the executive decision to cancel the third day of the festival he’s clearly not holding a grudge against Bindra.
Criticized for being the manager of a Chelsea nightclub closed by the city after being accused of being an ecstasy den guilty of aiding several fatal doses and hiding unconscious patrons in a secret room without medical attention, the recent negative headlines surrounding Electric Zoo leave Bindra in much need of defending.
“There’s something that he was involved with about a dozen years ago, but we’ve been working with this promoter, organizer, for the past five years and they have a stellar record… I can tell you that when we brought it to their attention, we didn’t need to — they knew they had to put in as good procedures as we could think of and have been nothing but cooperative, and I have nothing but good things to say about them… The bottom line here is that you see people here who are doing drugs that shouldn’t be doing drugs and you see the fatal consequences… The city will have to take a look at every concert to see if the concert can be run safely.”
While Bloomberg is clearly pointing out that the only people at fault here are those who choose to use drugs it is also clear that things in the music industry are going to start changing once again in New York.