Prison recored Surfaces : Solana Beach Teen Club Owner’s Background Adds Fuel to Controvery

When the Distillery West nightspot opened in Solana Beach in April, it attracted an instant following among the restless teen-agers of North County, lured by the music and dancing and also by the glib, forceful personality of club manager Richard Henry Vander.

Vander, 35, a short and muscular man with skull and dagger tattoos crawling up his arms, said he wanted his club to be a haven for teens trying to stay away from alcohol and drugs. But the club met immediate opposition from the Sheriff’s Department and Solana Beach officials.

For six months, the beach community has been split by a schism between teen-agers and their elders over the future of the bright light disco.

In the middle of the generation gap controversy has been the talkative and energetic Vander, who describes himself as a musician and former bartender in a topless bar who has seen life’s seamy side and now wants to help teen-agers have fun and stay clean.

Previous Record

What Vander has not revealed is that he is an ex-convict who served a 15-month prison stretch ending in 1980 in Texas for selling cocaine and receiving stolen property. Texas records also show four other misdemeanor convictions for theft, carrying a weapon, possessing a controlled substance and passing bad checks.

He also pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property in San Diego in 1981 and was sent to County Jail. He has twice been a fugitive from prosecution.

Surprised and angered that his criminal record has been uncovered, Vander insisted Friday that his past should play no part in the upcoming decision by the Solana Beach City Council and by City Manager Michael Huse on whether he can reopen Distillery West as a non-alcoholic teen-age disco at 140 South Sierra Ave., across the street from the city lifeguard station.

“I’m not the same person as the one who went to prison,” Vander said. “I have paid my debt to society. I’ve reformed. I love kids and I’m not involved in drugs or anything wrong at all. The offenses that sent me to prison were commited when I was a teen-ager.”

Records put his age at 25 when he received an $800 stolen stereo and sold a half-ounce of cocaine outside a music store he operated in Houston in 1977, felonies which sent him to state prison in Huntsville, Tex.

“Well, that’s sort of like a teen-ager,” Vander said.

Vander’s criminal record is likely to be taken into account by city officials deciding whether to grant a permit for a teen club because the city ordinance allows consideration of an applicant’s character.

Unaware of Vander’s background, teen-agers flocked to Distillery West to dance to calypso, heavy metal, funk, soul, and classic rock ‘n’ roll.

“Before Richard Vander opened this club, the kids had no place else to go but the beach or Tijuana or boring movies,” said Kristin Charnholm, a 17-year-old from Del Mar. “Kids had almost no place to go to have fun without booze or drugs around. I’ve gone to

parties where row after row of kids are passed out.”

Teen Club Concept

Even officials who are on the verge of putting Vander out of business say a non-alcoholic club for teens would be a tremendous boost in efforts to curb teen drinking and drug abuse in the affluent beach communities of North County.

“Our history with Mr. Vander has been rather rocky, but there is a lot of interest in the community for this concept, and the council is convinced of the need,” Huse said.

Vander and his wife, Tanya, a former employee of a San Francisco stock brokerage, opened Distillery West with money from a medical insurance settlement they received last year because of the neurological trauma their daughter suffered at birth, which rendered her brain damaged and a quadriplegic.

In interviews this week, Vander initially denied that he had ever had a run-in with law enforcement in Texas but later conceded he served a prison sentence on two felony counts. He said he served 36 months, though Texas prison records indicate he served 15 months.

Vander insisted that four misdemeanor convictions and six other arrests listed under his name in records kept by the Houston Police Department and the Harris County District Clerk actually belonged to his brother, Raymond.

However, a further check showed that the name, date of birth, Social Security number, physical description, and tattoos listed on the Texas records match Richard Henry Vander, one of nine children of a retired couple living in El Cajon.

“It’s all a massive screw-up, somebody is trying to get me,” he said.

The council and city manager have known for months about Vander’s criminal history but have neither mentioned it publicly nor leaked it to the local press, which has covered the Distillery West battle in great detail.

The Times learned of Vander’s criminal record while exploring a possible story on the civic controversy.

Decision Soon

The council will discuss Oct. 19 whether the 5,000-square-foot site, the location of several failed restaurants and dance parlors in recent years, is a proper site for a teen club. The decision on whether to issue a permit then would rest with Huse, who has promised a decision Oct. 20.

Huse will not discuss how he is leaning, or what the Sheriff’s Department vice squad recommended, but there appears little chance he will approve the application for what would be the first club of its kind on the North County coast.

The city has also moved to revoke Vander’s permit to run Distillery West as a non-alcoholic adult nightspot, citing the fact he was arrested in August for allowing minors in the club.

Vander initially sought a liquor license for the club but dropped that application amid opposition from neighbors and the Sheriff’s Department and a wide-ranging background investigation by the state Department of Alcohol Beverage Control.

The club has six dance floors and Vander says he envisioned top rock ‘n’ roll groups performing. When sheriff’s deputies raided Distillery West on Aug. 26 and arrested Vander, several hundred young adults were dancing to the strains of the Mar Dells, a local group.

Background Relevant

Vander’s criminal past is potentially relevant to the permit process under a provision in city codes, adopted from county codes, saying that a permit can be denied if the person assigned to run the club “is not a suitable or proper person to carry on the business.”

A permit can also be denied to protect “the health, welfare or public morals of the community.”

According to court records in Harris County, Tex., Vander was convicted on April 19, 1976, of theft, carrying a weapon, and carrying a controlled substance, all misdemeanors. He was fined a total of $250.

On July 6, 1979, he was convicted of theft by check, a misdemeanor, and sentenced to 92 days in jail, according to court records.

On June 18, 1979, Vander was convicted of receiving stolen property and delivery of cocaine, both felonies, and sentenced to five years in the Texas state prison system. He had been a fugitive for several months before his arrest.

Besides his convictions, the Houston Police Department records indicate Vander was arrested six times between 1973 and 1976 for incidents that did not result in charges or where charges were filed but dismissed.

Vander was in prison in Huntsville from July 10, 1979, to Oct. 31, 1980, before being paroled to San Diego, near where his family lived, according to records kept by the Texas Department of Corrections. While in prison, records indicate, Vander took college courses in keypunch operating and played drums in the prison rodeo band.

Once paroled to San Diego, Vander worked as a bartender and assistant manager at Dirty Dan’s, a topless bar in the Midway area. He blames that association with the topless business for current opposition from the Sheriff’s Department.

On April 24, 1981, Vander and his brother, Mark, were charged with vehicle theft and receiving stolen property. They later pleaded guilty to receiving stolen property in San Diego County Superior Court, and Richard Vander was sentenced to 90 days in County Jail, put on three-years probation, and ordered to make $2,543 in restitution to the car owner.

His probation was revoked in fall 1982 and he was arrested on a fugitive warrant in early 1983 and sentenced to an additional 365 days, less the 79 days he had already served.

Met Future Wife

Once out of jail, he moved to San Francisco and became involved in the recording and nightclub scene. It was there that he met and married Tanya, an employee of Sutro & Co. Inc., a San Francisco-based stock and bond brokerage. She recalls they were married in either 1983 or 1984.

The pair moved back to San Diego so their daughter could get care at Children’s Hospital. Their daughter, Anna Star Vander, died in November, 1986, three months shy of her third birthday. The Vanders had sued the doctor who delivered the child.

Tanya Vander, Vander’s second wife, says the club is dedicated to their daughter’s memory. The Vanders say they have spent $283,000 of the settlement on rent, furnishings and supplies for Distillery West, with only $20,000 in income since the club opened in April.

“We just want a place where the kids can dance and go wild and have fun without drinking,” Tanya Vander said. “It eases the pain of Anna Star to see them whirling about, all sweaty and excited.”

“We want a place like Chuck E. Cheese, a family-style place,” said her husband. “But our dream is turning to b.s. because of the city.”

Attention Getter

Vander has proved adept at gathering a youthful following and attracting media attention. When his arrest for allowing minors on the premises appeared imminent Aug. 26, he called local newspapers and television stations and the moment was replayed on news broadcasts and in front-page photos.

He later held a press conference surrounded by teen-agers to decry what he saw as outrageous behavior on the part of Sheriff’s Department and Solana Beach officials. He has been unfailingly quotable and eager for press coverage during the controversy with officials of the fledgling city.

Richard and Tanya Vander both face misdemeanor charges of allowing minors in a club only licensed for adults. On that basis, the city moved to revoke the adult club permit, which the Vanders had received from the county before Solana Beach incorporated as a city.

Tanya Vander, a large, earthy woman who answers questions readily, says the death of their daughter and then a pit bull attack on her husband at Fiesta Island left her emotionally devastated.

Her eyes well with tears when Anna Star’s name is mentioned. The couple has since had a son, Michael Rock, and live in El Cajon.

“Our dream of a place for kids, a place for Anna Star, is dying,” she said.

Since the arrests, the adult business (definited as age 18 or over) has dropped to virtually nothing as the club struggles to stay open four nights a week from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. with records and a disc jockey. On Thursday, it closed at 9:30 p.m., the dance floors empty, not a single soda sold.

Parents’ Names on Form

As further proof that his criminal record should not be considered, Vander notes that the teen club application has been requested in the name of his parents, Charles and Martha Vander of El Cajon, and that Tanya has been listed as the manager.

“I don’t think it’s anybody’s business whether I own the club or not, but the fact is that I don’t mean to run it,” Vander said. “I mean to open a teen club and put mom and dad, who are my business partners, in charge. I want to move on, this isn’t a big enough challenge for me.”

The controversy has been a complicated back-and-forth between Vander and officialdom, complicated by the switch-over from county control to incorporation and by what Vander says were assurances that he could keep operating as a teen club while the city adopted a teen nightclub ordinance for youths from 16 to 20. Officials deny such assurance were given.

The new ordinance says a permit can be immediately denied if an applicant, owner or management employee has had a criminal conviction in the past five years. Vander says that even if his past is studied, his last conviction--for receiving stolen property--was more than five years ago.

However, the ordinance also says a permit can be denied if the applicant has suffered revocation of any other permit within the past year. A week ago Huse revoked the club’s adult permit after a closed-door hearing with Vander, thus seemingly setting the stage for denying the teen permit as well on Oct. 20. (Vander has been allowed to operate while he appeals the revocation.)

Huse and other officials say they have known of Vander’s criminal past for several months but that it has not yet played a role in the city’s dealings with Vander and Distillery West, which have been essentially land-use decisions.

He declines to speculate on how it might influence his Oct. 20 decision.

However, asked a general question about whether a criminal background might preclude someone from receiving a teen nightclub permit, Huse said, “It would be very difficult to justify issuing a permit in those circumstances.”

Vander says he will sue if the city turns down his application.