Members of Thanet council’s licensing panel have met this week to discuss Dreamland following the tragic death of 17-year-old Emily Stokes who had been attending a drum and bass event at the venue.
Emergency services were called to help teenager Emily Stokes, who had been attending the Worried About Henry drum and bass event at Dreamland, but sadly she died at QEQM Hospital that evening (June 29).
Her 19-year-old sister Megan says the cause was thought to be a drug overdose and she believes her younger sister was spiked.
Police are investigating the circumstances of Emily’s death and the force also confirmed reports of drug dealing in the area were received on the day and seven people were arrested on suspected dealing offences. Two of those were released without charge and five were bailed pending further enquiries.
During a council meeting last night (July 11) council leader Rick Everitt expressed his sympathies for the family and revealed there had been ‘numerous’ people hospitalised.
He said: “17-year-old Emily Stokes died at QEQM Hospital on Saturday, June 29 after attending a drum and bass event at Dreamland and numerous other people were hospitalised, some in a serious condition.”
He said the incident was subject to police investigation and legal processes but confirmed that, as the licensing authority, Thanet council is working with police “to ensure that action is taken to enhance public safety in Dreamland.”
Conservative group leader Reece Pugh said councillors had been “expressing concerns” about how the council could ensure that venues operated within certain constraints to ensure public safety.
He asked why no action to review the Dreamland licence had been taken by the council “in the interim” while the police investigation is underway.
He added: “After the tragic deaths at the O2 Brixton, Lambeth Council suspended the licence pending an investigation, why have we not done the same?”
In response Cllr Everitt said Dreamland had been discussed by the licensing panel this week and “there will be recommendations emerging into the public domain.”
He added: “It (the discussion) was informed by the police and I understand decisions were taken on what am I am told were instructions from the police.”
Green group leader Mike Garner agreed that the incident needed to be “thoroughly investigated.”
A Dreamland spokesperson previously said they were “deeply saddened” by Emily’s death but were unable to comment further because of the ongoing police investigation.
In February 2023 Thanet council granted a new premises licence for Dreamland which allowed a doubling of outdoor events and extended eight indoor events per year from a 2am closing to 4am.
It also permitted the park to hold four all-dayer events. Park bosses said the extended events were needed “for the ongoing financial viability of Dreamland.”
The licence was to be reviewed after 18 months – which would mean it is due this month.
There needs to be a robust clampdown on drug dealers, many come to areas where events are being held just to sell their nasty substances. And dont expect event organisers to be responsible for all of it.
You just cannot stop drugs getting into these events. There are so many ways to get them in and top of that police have probably little to no intelligence on dealers coming from other areas.
The only way to stop this is to stop having an events that will attract this sort of behaviour (especially drum & bass) and react much better when it is happening
shut the whole place down until security is a lot better and trained properly then maybe once that’s sorted and investigations over then and only then rethink of opening it back up and only allow so many in so no1 is cramped up and suffocating its absolutely disgusting that a young person has died and all they can think of is making money again disgusting putting money before a life sad on council and dreamland
TDC cannot blame Dreamland, they are not responsible for the things people get up to when at the events, the people to blame are the one’s selling drugs, if people want drugs them will get them one wy or another.
Dreamland is responsible, they have a duty of care to their customers. This has shown that like other events they have to be prepared for nasty people who are going to do nasty things, sadly this is the world we live in.
Get real. Kids and adults will get drugs wherever. The police need to go after the serious drug dealers, including those within their own ranks.
Clive, though they first need to be shown as having not taken reasonable measures to prevent harm, and in an instance such as this ( despite all those clamouring to condem them with the benefit of hindsight and little real information) that hasn’t been determined as yet.
As Usual, asking the wrong question of what happened; the question should be what are we going to do to stop it happening again, and when is it going to be put in place.
He added: “After the tragic deaths at the O2 Brixton, Lambeth Council suspended the licence pending an investigation, why have we not done the same?”
Would that not largely be because until it is proven beyond reasonable doubt that the drugs were aquired and taken on the premises the Dreamland management can’t be seen to be at fault. Even then in the absence of strip and body cavity searches of everyone entering an event you won’t keep drugs out and even then people will just take them before going in.
It’s absurd in a country that has a decided not to do much about drugs/ dealing and accepts around 4700 drug deaths a year that there is a sudden furore about a death at a event, how many other people died as a result of illegal drugs that weekend?
Or is it a case of society wanting to pass its failures onto businesses?
Goodbye Dreamland… Hello Winter Gardens?
Totally agree Peter
And me and thousands of right minded people.
A good time to cancel the licence now it is up for review.
TDC have bent over backwards to help Dreamland even though events are now owned by a very rich company.
The lack of proper security inside the venue and on the gate is a safety issue that no other venue would be allowed to get away with. It is a danger to the public as has been evidenced numerous times already.
They need to either stop events or beef up security. They need to review the noise permitted also as it has become antisocial for residents in Margate.
Totally agree no one outside Dreamland & TDC signed up for this noise pollution,all concerts should be inside ,like Winter Gardens,or Dreamland build a big hall on site
” Dreamland build a big hall on site”
You’ve not been to dreamland recently at all, have you?
Of course tdc are bending over backwards, huge sums of public money have gone into the venue and tdc effectively sold it off for a song, they need it to be a success or face trouble in the future accessing external funding , the whole dreamland story has been a fiasco decades in the making, noise levels and attendance numbers need addressing, but to try and make said decisions on the back of a tragic event ,where the most likely explanation is that a young person experimented with illegal drugs and paid the ultimate price, is nothing more than the dreamland antis cynically using a young persons death for their own ends.
It is the responsibility of the Police to apply the law. It is impossible for organizers to stop drugs getting in to anywhere, clubs, pubs, schools, sports events, council meetings. The Kids will find a way to get them and if the venue is closed, denying thousands the pleasure of good entertainnment because a very small minority take risks. If the venue is closed they will go elsewhere for the drugs and the Council will lose income and a popular venue.
If I was a conspiracy theorist, I’d believe that the venue is being run poorly so that it is forced to close down… and then the owners can turn around and claim that it is unviable for anything else, and apply to turn the site into a housing estate.
Give it a few years, let the flats at the back be demolished, then there’ll be nosies about the park being too large to be sustainable and that development to the rear would enable the front of the park to have a longterm future.
Planning goes in, granted, site sold off, soon after operator unloads the remains to another entity , toddles off with a fat cheque and leaves the dreamland saga to continue.
The 10 year moratorium on development in the sale agreement will now be a mute point given the current government’s statements on building homes, so it may not be long until the housing ball starts rolling, or if you want to be really cynical, the current TDC leaders place tight restrictions on the park and bring the housing forward , citing local housing need and government policy as reason to not enforce the sale condition, make it social housing and the bishop of bath and wells will get very excited.
Big difference between Brixton and this death- both tragic as they are- is that it would appear the Dreamland tragedy was self inflicted- if they hadn’t taken the drugs then no overdose or spiking. If you start heavy searches they’ll just take the drugs before the event outside of the premesis. The obvious answer is to stop having events aimed at the youth market, sad as that is. .
Didn’t her sister claim that she’d been injected? Must confess, I haven’t followed this tragic event that closely.
The statement was along the lines of think, felt , thought. No evidence to support the claim. A claim used every week in A&E departments across the country to avoid people being labelled as a drug user and/or being questioned as to the source of the drugs.
The 80/90’s rave scene was pretty much only a success because of the pharmaceutical content of events, millions of people had exceptionally good times, yes some died and it remains to be seen if there are going to be long term negative effects as they get older, but it would be interesting to compare it to deaths from alcohol and associated violence etc, i’d guess that younger generations are quite capable of assessing risk for the most part and recreational drug use is no more harmful than drink, there has and will always be deaths from such activities , nothing is and never will be totally safe.
Proff David Nutt got sacked for saying E’s were basically the safest drug to do along with weed and had little to no long term effect on users if dosed correctly.
Which would be all well and good if the quality of the substances was known and people stuck to proper doses. The longterm effects of ecstasy remain to be known , but given the plentiful evidence of the damage long term cannabis use has on people , especially those that start in their early/mid teens , it’ll be no surprise if the heavy users of ecstasy have some issues.
Of course that has to be considered alongside the damage from long term alcohol avuse and the effects of other illegal narcotics.
Of course all these pale in comparison to the damamge done by excess calories and peoples addictions to sugar and fat.
Keith Richards claims that heroin is the best drug to use, as it (according to him) has no long-term effects once you quit it. That doesn’t mean I want to try it, ditto any other illegal substance.
(and, before anyone asks, I only drink alcohol in extreme moderation: usually just one lager shandy OR one small glass of wine, and no more than twice per week).
As an aside, I’ve always thought that if music requires drugs for one to enjoy it, then that music isn’t very good in the first place.
Yet , smoking a spliff and listening to Dark side of the moon in the 70s was quite the norm wasn’t it!
I don’t consider that particularly good music either, personally.
While Dreamland isn’t responsible for its audience’s choices, it has to do everything possible to minimise the risk to those attending events. I’ve seen quite a few claims here that security checks are perfunctory or don’t happen and that it can get overly hot and overcrowded inside the venue. If that’s the case then they are potentially facilitating drug abuse and allowing conditions that could exacerbate the ill-effects of drug abuse.
Some have also suggested that spiking was happening at the event in question. It should be possible to report spiking and for security to act promptly to remove the suspected assailants from the premises at the very least.
None of this is easy but it should be par for the course however costly and complex it may be. Saving just one life would be worth it. Or should be … it should be.
The problem with dreamland is that you can go in to use the rides, plant your drugs for the evening event. Than get through any security with easy and than pick up your drugs once inside.
Do sniffer dogs check the area before the evening event ?
Agree Mr X. Due diligence has to be practised at all times.
How far would you go with searches? Because once those limits are known people will find a way round it. Why all these checks for an entertainment event and not something to be done on the streets everyday? This was one drug death of what will be somewhere between 4 and 5 thousand this year, was the death in this case more deserving than the others?
British society has decided that drugs get a hefty dose of tolerance and pretty much turn a blind eye to all but the import and top tier distribution.
This was a terrible thing to happen and I agree, better security checks should be in place. Drugs are a big problem and those dealing them in Dreamland gives the venue a bad name. I have been to a few concerts there this year and had a great time. It would be a shame to lose this venue. If it goes then Margate will have no entertainment venues.
Alternatively, someone would be far more likely to invest in the Winter Gardens if there wasn’t another big venue down the road.
Maybe. But it wouldn’t get the big names drawing 5-7k a time – but could host the comics, shows and up and coming bands that would fill a 1500-2000 capacity venue. Room for both I would expect.
It attracted bigger names than you might think. For example, JLS: currently on a reunion tour and recently at Dreamland, the Winter Gardens hosted them for 2 nights running at the height of their chart success.
I WOULD NOT SAY THIS-SHUT IT DOWN FOR GOOD.
A slightly confused message.
This is a terrible personal tragedy for the family of this young woman and yet another serious incident at Dreamland .
Await to see the recommendations as health safety, security and management of events has been found wanting on many occasions prior to the licence being extended and also following its extension.