It’s Just Another Night of Passage at Teen Club

Victoria Ahuna was gossiping with friends at Phases, the teen club in Canoga Park, when her favorite song came roaring through some speakers in the next room.

“Omigod, I’m gonna freak,” said Victoria, 17, of Simi Valley, bolting in the direction of the dance floor. “This is rad. I am dying. I have got to dance right now. “

That impulse is common at Phases. On Friday night, as is the case most weekends, hundreds of teen-agers passed through the doors of the converted bar on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, trading a $6 cover charge for a chance to compare fashions, smoke cigarettes and hang around with peers--but mostly to dance to the “rad” (translation: radical, the moment’s version of “far-out”) music.

One of a handful of Los Angeles clubs that cater to footloose teen-age patrons, Phases has long been described as a haven for drugs, sex and rowdiness. The San Fernando Valley club was one of the inspirations for bills pending in Los Angeles City Hall and in Sacramento that would reduce the hours of such clubs and require parents of patrons under age 18 to sign consent forms before their children are admitted.

Phases itself has been under a cloud since April 2, when police raided the club and found two patrons under age 16 without parental supervision. Neighbors have complained of everything from parking congestion to public urination. Petitions have been circulated and counter-circulated.

But on Friday evening, it was hard to see what the fuss was all about. The crowd at the 6,000-square-foot club was devoted to teen-age rituals, not to crime. Nobody looked drunk or otherwise altered. The smoke in the bathroom didn’t smell like anything but cigarettes.

As for politics, any talk of controversy was buried by the boom of the speakers on the dance floor.

“This is where you come to be yourself,” said Lisa Meadows, a 17-year-old friend of Victoria and one of about 400 teens at the club. “We just come and see each other. You just go and do what you want.”

The bodies on the dance floor were almost all between the ages of 16 and 18. There is no upper age limit at the club, however, and teens under 16 can get in accompanied by a parent--but none came that way Friday night.

The clientele was almost completely white and, by self-description, almost completely drawn from middle- and upper-middle-class homes in the Valley.

They began arriving at 9:30 p.m., about 90 minutes after the club opened. Most came in cars with friends, although a few were transported by their parents.

At the door of the club, ID’s were routinely checked by one of four security guards, who carried both pistols and billy clubs. Some purses were checked, and a few boys were frisked.

Although Phases has always had security guards, the four guards were part of a beefed-up security team mandated by the Los Angeles Police Commission at the suggestion of West Valley Councilwoman Joy Picus.

Phases was closed to patrons under age 18 after the April 2 raid because it did not have a permit required in Los Angeles for teen clubs. But three weeks later, the Police Commission allowed it to readmit those customers under a 60-day permit setting the conditions of tighter security.

By midnight Friday, the guards would turn away more than 50 patrons for lack of proper identification or for not being old enough.

The security guards, however, were far and away the most threatening people in the area. Inside, at first, there were only a few patrons, who gathered at the corners of the dance floors looking nonchalant. A few sat at benches surrounding the club’s two non-alcoholic bars, ordering Cokes and smoking. A few others waited in an enclosed patio at the back of the club.

Among the first to arrive was 18-year-old Patti Smith of Sepulveda, who showed up in a carefully coordinated arrangement of black, pointy boots, black cotton pants, a black shirt, and a huge green jacket she had taken from her father’s closet. Smith, who graduated a year ago from Monroe High School, said she was a regular at the club, along with most of her friends.

‘Post-Vogue’ Look

“It took me three hours to get ready,” she said. “I thought about wearing my rhinestone shoes, but they were a little much.”

Smith said her style of dress was one of several standard costumes at the club. Some people, she said, favor the “death rock” look, distinguishable by black lipstick, white face paint, all-black clothing, and a love of bands with names such as “Alien Sex Fiend” and “Sex Game Children.”

Others, like herself, Smith said, are into “post-vogue,” which translates roughly into loads of costume jewelry and oversized secondhand clothes. A few look like “geeks,” she said, by virtue of their T-shirts and jeans. Still others, called “psychedelics,” favor paisley shirts, boots and tiny dark glasses.

A few groups were conspicuous by their absence. Smith said there are never any “redneck” fans at Phases because the music they favor is “terrible for dancing” and is not played there. Break dancers are also rare, since the disc jockeys only rarely play break-dancing music.

Piping Aboard ‘Tunas’

A few of the regulars, including Lisa, came to the club equipped with “Tuna whistles,” which are used to mark the presence of “Trendy Urban New-Wave Adolescents.” Tunas, for the most part, dress like clones of rock star Madonna, or like “young businessman on the town,” according to Victoria.

“Those are the people who order mango juice and walk around smoking filtered clove cigarettes,” Victoria said. “They’re all future yuppies. They look ridiculous.”

Some in the crowd favored personal touches, ranging from the girl with the stringy pink hair to the boy who showed up in a tie.

But the wardrobe wars did not breed much tension. In the course of the night, there wasn’t anything resembling a fight, and nobody got caught doing anything illegal.

Most Just Dance

For the most part, in fact, they just danced. Victoria jumped up on a small stage when her favorite song came on, mouthing the lyrics and waving her hands around. Others danced in groups, or alone, facing mirrors.

Most of the music was offered by disc jockey Matthew Jackson, a 25-year-old business major at California State University, Northridge, and a fixture in a glassed booth at the far end of the dance floor.

Jackson, who prefers Izod shirts to the looks of his audience, said his music is almost all from recent releases, a mix of “50% soul, 30% disco and 20% new wave.” Jackson said he does not play “rock ‘n’ roll.” Bruce Springsteen never graces his turntable.

According to Jackson, the news at Phases is that “Like a Virgin” is on the way out, while “Nasty Girls” is starting to pack the floor.

‘These People Are Picky’

“That’s just the way it goes,” he said, puffing a Marlboro and reaching for one of roughly 1,000 records stacked in the disc-jockey booth. “These people are picky. They know exactly what they want.”

Next week, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to consider a new teen nightclub ordinance proposed by Picus, which would require teen clubs to close at midnight on weekends and at 10 p.m. on nights before school days. Currently, teens still are arriving at the club at midnight. The club stays open until 2 a.m.

Perhaps because Phases has a rule prohibiting patrons from leaving and coming back without paying another $6, there was not much action in the parking lot Friday. A few teens loitered briefly, only to be shooed off by the guards.

Parent Ventures Within

Of the parents who brought their children to Phases, Ingrid Scott, 38, was one of a few who ventured inside the club temporarily. Scott, a resident of Burbank, had driven her daughter Crystal Murphy over, and planned to return to pick her up at closing time.

Scott, for one, didn’t mind what she saw. It was loud, she said, and some of the kids looked at little strange.

“They look radical, yes,” she decided, after her “death rock” daughter disappeared into the crowd. “It reminds me of the gold lame pants I used to wear when I was a kid.”