City Law Blamed in Demise of Teen Clubs

Tracy Conroy, 18, looked up from the pool table at Xenon West, a teen-age disco in Ventura, to talk about the teen-age nightclub scene.

“Look,” said Tracy, “if I didn’t have a dance club, I’d die.”

The same with her best friend, Heather Blake, 18, who said that for three years she has been club-hopping “every weekend, whenever I can, all the time.”

But Tracy and Heather, both of Ventura, have fewer licensed clubs to hop to since the demise this year of two of the San Fernando Valley’s most popular teen-age clubs.

Phases, the embattled night club in Canoga Park, closed its doors in late September. Hot Trax in Van Nuys was sold; now called Allusions, it is open only on Fridays and Saturdays. Another club on the teen-age circuit, Gino’s in Hollywood, recently closed, police said.

“That’s it,” said Kevin Parr, former manager of Phases. “They’re pretty much all gone.”

Alternative Partying

Teen-agers and club owners say that, with fewer clubs available, Valley youths are going to clubs in other areas, such as Xenon West, or to so-called transient “underground” parties, where booze and drugs are said to be available upon request.

“If I were a parent, I’d be more worried about my kids now than before,” Tracy said.

Club owners and patrons are blaming closures of licensed teen-age spots, at least in part, on a controversial, year-old Los Angeles city ordinance that clamped down on their operations. West Valley Councilwoman Joy Picus, who sponsored the ordinance, disputes the charge.

Teen-age clubs incurred the wrath of authorities after police began receiving complaints about illegal activities taking place at the clubs. Parents described Phases, focal point of the teen-age club controversy, as a haven for youths seeking narcotics, alcohol and sex. Neighbors of Phases, police said, complained about parking congestion, fighting and public urination, among other things.

“It was an intolerable situation,” Picus said. “Horrible stories were coming out about the things that were going on at these places.”

The ordinance requires that nightspots close to teen-agers by 10 p.m. on school nights and by 1 a.m. on other nights. It restricts attendance at teen-age clubs to those from 13 to 21 who are carrying proof of age; youths 13 to 15 must either be accompanied by a parent or guardian or have written permission to attend. Of course, no alcohol is allowed in licensed teen-age clubs.

Drunks Barred

The ordinance also requires teen-age club employees to refuse admission to intoxicated youths and report them to parents and police.

Gene Stiles, owner of the Valley’s last remaining club, Allusions, and Xenon West in Ventura, said, “You need good regulations, but in L. A., the regulations are somewhat carried away.” He and other owners said they believe the law overprotects teen-agers and unfairly cuts into profits.

For example, Stiles said, the identification requirements present a Catch-22 situation that routinely forces him to turn away “hundreds” of teen-agers: “They require ID, but most kids that age don’t carry IDs. If they do, it’s usually a school ID that doesn’t have a birth date.”

Closure of licensed teen-age clubs and the restrictions at Allusions have been a boon to business at Xenon West, according to Stiles. About a third of the 600 to 800 teen-agers who patronize the club weekend nights are from the Valley, he said.

Allusions attracts only about 300 teen-agers on weekend nights, and Stiles said he does not even open the club during the week because he “knows the majority of my clients are not even going to bother to come in, with the 10 p.m. curfew. Kids today don’t even start going out until that time.”

Stiles said Los Angeles is not the only city that has imposed strict rules on teen-age clubs. About 100 of California’s 150 non-alcoholic discos for youths have closed down in the last year and a half, and Stiles said he thinks that the regulations have been a factor in closing at least some of them.

Others see the regulations as only one factor in the teen-age clubs’ decline.

Betty Beaird, coordinator of Parents Concerned About Teen Discos, said attendance at the clubs dropped sharply because of the August, 1985, shooting death of a 15-year-old patron outside Hot Trax.

“Hot Trax had a problem with location,” Beaird said. “It was in a rough area that scared a lot of kids.”

Shifting Tastes

Two former club owners said that, although Picus’ ordinance is partly to blame, the clubs also have fallen victim to the shifting tastes of youth.

“Clubs just aren’t that big a thing anymore with kids,” said Chris Cox, a former co-owner of Phases.

Douglas Noecker, a former co-owner of Hot Trax, said the music industry recently has not helped lure youths into clubs. “I haven’t seen extreme popularity in dance songs in ages,” he said.

Nevertheless, Noecker said the ordinance “made it harder and harder to stay in business, and it’s definitely contributed to the diminishing number of clubs.

“It was just another knife in my side. I didn’t want to deal with it, and I sold my business,” Noecker said.

“Businesses fail all the time,” Picus countered, “not just teen-age dance clubs.”

Responding to the owners’ complaints that the 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. closing times are unnecessarily early, Picus added, “All I can say is that any 18-year-old of mine would be home by 1.”

Whether or not the law is responsible for clubs going under, owners and teen-agers interviewed contend that the closings have led to an explosion of unsupervised, mobile underground parties that cater to both teen-agers and adults.

“The more legitimate clubs that close down, the more underground clubs that open up,” said Parr, who estimated that there are a dozen transient parties each weekend in the Valley and Hollywood area.

Often held in warehouses or at private residences and advertised only by flyer or word of mouth, transient parties are unlicensed and normally beyond the control of police because they change locations each weekend. This ability to elude the law, police, club owners and teen-agers contend, fosters an environment in which drugs and alcohol are freely sold and consumed.

‘Gene Keeps It Clean’

“At least at legit places like Xenon West, Gene keeps it clean and stays within the ordinance,” Heather said, referring to Stiles, the owner. “There’s nothing like that at the undergrounds. There, it’s easy to get drugs and distribute them. You pay and get in.”

Identification a Formality

Heather added that doormen at the underground clubs--some of them with names such as Plastic Passion, Dirt Box, Dick Tracy and the Aftermath--sometimes ask for identification cards, but usually as a mere formality.

“The first time I went to an underground club, the guy asked me if I had an ID to drink,” she said. “I said, ‘No,’ and he just said, ‘You need this pretty little stamp,’ and put it on me.”

Detective Richard Rudell of the Los Angeles Police Commission’s investigation division said that, in recent months, he has grown “increasingly aware” of what he calls “hit-and-run” clubs. Picus said her office has “just begun” to receive constituent mail concerning the traveling discos.

Elusive Nuisance

But Rudell acknowledged that the scope of the problems at the underground clubs is difficult to determine. “It’s hard for us to get a grip on them. Whenever we find out about one of these parties, they’ve already packed up and left,” he said.

Beaird said she does not see a connection between the teen-age club shutdowns and the flourishing transient parties. “Those clubs existed before the teen ordinance and after the teen ordinance,” she said.

Positive Impact

The overall effect of the ordinance has been positive, she said. “It’s kept the younger children either out of the discos or in discos where they are safer,” she said.

But Stiles said he believes parents like Beaird are being naive.

“They believe if the kids don’t have a place to go, they’ll go home, to sleep, to church,” he said.

“That’s not true. They’ll be on the street.”