Turn Off the Lights.(nightclubs)(Brief Article)

The Seoul police arrived at J.'s home around 8 a.m. one day last month. They rousted the 25-year-old model from her bed, hauled her to the local station and--after demanding a urine sample and denying her legal counsel--said an informant had fingered her as a "clubber" and a drug addict. Under pressure, J. admitted taking ecstasy at a rave club in New York recently. The police replied that the law had been changed-- making it illegal for South Koreans to use narcotics anywhere in the world. J. was arrested. When she asked on what evidence, one of the officers replied: "You confessed." Hoping to catch other "pretty fish," in the words of one officer, the cops said J. would be treated leniently if she named other drug users--preferably "someone important." She refused, but her manager, along with others in the fashion business, gave names to the police. In subsequent weeks more than 40 models, former beauty queens and other celebrities were detained in drug raids across South Korea's capital.

Seoul wants to become a premier tourist city, on a par with Hong Kong, Tokyo and Singapore, but that ambition clashes with Korea's conservative, sometimes xenophobic culture. With hordes of World Cup football fans soon to arrive, the Seoul Metropolitan City Government has been promoting the Hongdae entertainment district as a place where tourists can party till dawn, if they like. In Hongdae, a neon-lit enclave north of the Han River, many young Koreans like J. do that now. They gather in small basement clubs to dance to techno music. But the local police, unhappy about foreign influences, take a dim view of the the partying. On the pretext of cleaning up Seoul before the World Cup, they're cracking down on the clubs--arresting patrons on drug charges, fining club owners for zoning violations, throwing some people in jail. The growing tension between the police and the clubs--as well as between two arms of the Seoul city government with opposite views of the bar scene--threatens to suffocate Seoul's most vibrant entertainment district on the cusp of Asia's biggest sports party ever.

One reason for the dispute is that Korea's bar and zoning laws are archaic. There is no legal designation for clubs in Korea. Dancing is illegal unless the club pays for an expensive "cabaret" license. The large Korean nightclubs (mostly gangster-controlled) can afford the license, but it was never designed for the small underground scene. So the clubs in Hongdae--which is still partly a residential and university neighborhood--get restaurant licenses as a compromise. Sometimes that satisfies the police and the Mapo district government, but it leaves the clubs vulnerable to the whims of officialdom. Periodic police shakedowns are a fact of life. "The police are the mafia here," says one Hongdae bar owner who routinely pays patrolmen to keep his business open. "You either pay them, or else they send in licensing officials." The fines start at 500,000 won (about $350) for a first offense and ...