Doctors removed 40 percent of Nick Nevarez’s skull and replaced it with a metal plate after a car crash following an “all ages” rave near Downtown L.A. left him with less than a 1 percent chance of survival. 

Nevarez, an 18-year old from Rosemead, spoke firsthand about the dangers raves can present at a meeting of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission on Friday.

After leaving a rave in August 2009, Nevarez and his friends, drunk and high on pills, got lost driving on San Fernando Boulevard in Glendale.

The street split to the left and the right, but the driver kept going straight and slammed into a street light at 80 mph.

“Their little boy was gonna die, you know? Their little boy was gonna be a vegetable,” Nevarez said.

Nevarez brought pictures of himself in the hospital as well as a replica of what his skull looked like after the accident.

As he spoke during the public comment period, he showed the commission the pictures from his months spent in various hospitals.

Nevarez is now working to prevent accidents like his from happening to others. In the past year, he has spoken at meetings for the cities of Rosemead, Pico Rivera and Montebello and has spoken to high school students in drug education programs.

“There’s gotta be a reason I’m still here,” he said.

Nevarez’s father Damian hoped the commission would consider ending the raves, calling them a “disgrace” to the Coliseum and saying promoters are “only interested in profiting off young people.”

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission approved a motion Friday to adopt 11 recommendations to provide a safer environment for future electronic music festivals, commonly known as raves, held at the Coliseum and the Sports Arena.

Skip Miller of Miller Barondess presents his law firm's research.

Skip Miller of the Miller Barondess law firm presented the recommendations to the commission. The thid-party law firm was hired to investigate June’s two-day Electric Daisy Carnival, held at the Coliseum, where a 15-year-old girl died.

The main recommendation requires all electronic music festivals at the Coliseum and the Sports Arena to enforce an age limit of 18 and to check the identification of all attendees, something that was not done at EDC.

“We have to find a balance between legitimate artistic expression and public safety,” said Commission Vice President David Israel.

The firm compiled a 14-page report detailing the evolution of music festivals like those held at the Coliseum, the growing popularity of the drug Ecstasy and its use at concerts and the planning of EDC 2010.

The Commission also voted to continue its ban on signing new contracts for any music festivals other than the three it already has scheduled, citing concerns over “the safety of our patrons and the reputation of our venue,” according to County Supervisor and Coliseum Commission Member Zev Yaroslavsky.

The three raves already scheduled for this year will take place in the Sports Arena rather than the Coliseum and will have fewer attendees than EDC, which attracted about 185,000 people over two days, according to the Miller Barondess report.

Other recommendations included displaying warnings about the dangers of illegal drugs at the Coliseum and Sports Arena during these events and prohibiting anyone found with drugs to enter the festival.

In his report to the commission, Miller blamed Ecstasy for making electronic music concerts so dangerous. He described the prevalent use of drugs at music festivals across the world as a “serious societal problem.”

Pasquale Rotella, who promoted EDC through his company Insomniac Events, said he agreed with the recommendations.

According to the Miller Barondess report, Rotella “would prefer to keep the events limited to individuals over 18 and has no problem strictly checking identification.”

When Yarslovsky asked how he would try to discourage drug use at his events, Rotella said people must be educated about the effects of drugs before they attend festivals and that “these issues are beyond the event.”

Yarslovsky called on companies like Insomniac Events to inform their patrons about illegal drug use and have musicians performing at events make public service announcements during the show.

Rotella said his company hired a third-party firm to investigate its safety measures, and he assured the commission he was invested in the safety of attendees.

“My concerns are the same as everyone else’s concerns here,” Rotella said.

But many who spoke in the public comment period seemed to disagree.

In a statement from the family of Sasha Rodriguez, the girl who died after attending EDC in June, the family urged the commission to “put our children’s health and safety ahead of profits.”

Some community members from the Exposition Park area advocated for the commission to put an end to raves at the Coliseum, after EDC attendees committed crimes and left trash in nearby neighborhoods.

Patrick Gannon, LAPD Deputy Chief of Operations in the South Bureau, said that in the area around the Coliseum, 53 crimes were reported in the two days that EDC took place. In the previous week, three crimes were reported in the same area.

The commission also listened to officials from the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Fire Department who talked about the problems they faced at EDC.

Despite more than four months of preparation, officers still encountered unanticipated problems of people rushing gates and jumping over fences, Gannon said.

“This was a well planned event…the problem was the size,” he said.

Gannon snapped his middle and ring fingers when he tried to stop a man from jumping over a fence at EDC, but he was less concerned about himself than he was about the community.

He sent 250 South L.A. police officers to the Coliseum on each day of EDC, which took many officers away from a part of the city that “can’t afford” to lose so many officers.

The commission and the LAPD and LAFD representatives agreed that EDC was planned as well as it could have been, but the number of attendees was the most out of the 37 electronic music festivals the Coliseum has hosted.

“Can we do better? I think you heard it from everyone here: absolutely,” said LAFD Battalion Chief Michael Bowman.

Protestors gathered in front of the Coliseum to show their support for keeping EDC at the venue.

After the meeting about a dozen protestors gathered in front of the Coliseum with neon signs and decorated T-shirts to “save EDC.”

Most of the protestors, in their teens and early 20s, attended the festival in June and heard about the commission’s meeting through the Internet. Some came from Long Beach and Downey to demonstrate their support for EDC.

To reach staff reporter Taylor Freitas, click here.

Photo credit: Taylor Freitas.