The Killer's Scrape with Cops

On this day in 1965, when Jerry Lee Lewis played downtown's Convention Hall, he got a "stern warning" from a "top local cop" because he allegedly violated city municipal code 33.1593: "It is unlawful for any musician or entertainer performing at a teenage dance to mingle with or physically contact the patrons." Lewis later told Goldmine magazine, "A couple of ladies, I don't know who they were or how old they were, they came up onstage and danced with me...when I came offstage, all of a sudden I was scared they'd run me out of town. This guy, he might've been the chief, he told me I could have been arrested."

Twenty-five years ago tomorrow -- July 1, 1980 -- the Grateful Dead drew the tie-dyed and squinty eyed to the Sports Arena. Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and manager Danny Rifkin got arrested. The trio, while witnessing the arrest of a pot smoker, tried to cajole onlookers into separating the doper from police officers. Cops pulled out additional handcuffs and arrested the three for "suspicion of inciting a riot." They returned to San Diego several weeks later to face charges. Their offense was reduced to a low-grade misdemeanor, fines were paid, and they walked out of the courtroom with a grudge against the SDPD that lingers to this day. "We couldn't believe what fascists they are down there," Weir told Golden Scarab, a Dead fanzine, in 1999. "We almost never went further south than Irvine after that. We didn't wanna set the kids up to be busted by a bunch of gorillas with no education who hate rock and roll music."