After the outpouring of grief following the loss of 63 lives at the Pulse nightclub fire in Kochani, Macedonia, earlier this year, people in the Balkans were hoping that club owners would finally fall into line and follow the laws to prevent a similar event ever happening again.
Well, they haven’t.
Friday night, Aca Lukas, one of the Balkan’s biggest Turbofolk stars from Serbia, caused headlines again but not for his notorious drug use, gambling debts or mafia connections. This time it was for being arrested in Macedonia for performing without a proper work permit and with intent not to declare his earnings. But those were not the main reasons why inspectors raided the venue where Aca Lukas was performing in the provincial Macedonian town of Kavadarci…
In a press conference after the raid, Macedonian Police listed the violations detected:
- Roma, the venue of this Aca Lukas concert, is registered as a café and therefore not licensed to hold concerts nor within the appropriate fire-safety standards necessary for concert halls.
- The organisers had no permit to hold this concert.
- Tickets at 1000 denars each (16 euros) were being sold illegally and without proper paperwork.
- Maximum capacity of the venue is 200, but at the time of the police raid there there were more than 500 people in Roma. Overcrowding like this was a main cause for the high number of deaths at the Pulse nightclub fire earlier this year.
Aca Lukas was also using the concert to promote his new cryptocurrency, Lukascoin.
The Pulse nightclub came after a series of major avoidable fires and road accidents in Macedonia, which saw many lives lost due to corruption, incompetence and a failure to follow basic safety standards, but no-one has been prosecuted. Unlike in neighbouring Serbia where the Novi Sad station façade collapse and the resulting 16 deaths prompted a nationwide protest movement that has continued for over a year, no similar action was able to sustain itself in Macedonia beyond a few weeks. However, the actions taken by the authorities with this event in Kavadarci could be a step in the right direction… but Balkan cynicism could win out again.
Before being arrested, Aca Lukas though won local hearts by posting on social media a clip of himself draped in the Macedonian flag in a quip at Turbofolk queen Ceca with her recent controversial performance in nearby Veles where she covered herself in a Bulgarian flag.
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