HIGH LIFE : Zzapp : Teen Club Is for People Who Really Want to Dance

Fluorescent paint splotches strewn across a stark, black wall appear to leap out at you when you enter Zzapp, Orange County’s nightclub designed exclusively for teen-agers.

The dance-oriented music blares from the DJ’s control box and the flicker of strobe lights and layers of artificial fog give the nightclub an eerie, midnight-around-the-clock feel.

The mirrored walls allow dancers to watch as they practice their bump and grind, or they might be used to scope out the room, searching for that special someone.

Depending on your mood and your company, you can choose between two dance floors--a smaller one for more intimacy or a larger one that’s 3,000 square feet and features three platforms for showing off your moves to the crowd.

Dark colors seem to be the fashion at Zzapp, and the people who spend their weekend nights there are truly dressed to impress.

You can come alone, with a friend or with a group, but the reason you come is to dance .

“There’s an atmosphere at dance clubs that’s just really nice,” said Jennifer Peck, a senior at Sunny Hills High School. “At parties, people sometimes feel stupid to dance because even with music, it’s not really a dance .”

Sunny Hills senior Tim Goodfellow said, “I go for the dancing. It’s different from house parties, where you’re just with your friends. And at the parties I go to, we don’t dance.”

Zzapp, which is in Anaheim and open Friday and Saturday nights from 8:30 p.m. to 1 a.m., does not serve alcohol, instead attracting teen-agers with its music, its facility and especially its age restriction.

John Schroeder, 32 and owner of Zzapp, said his club has a 16 to 21 age limit, and the only way a person over 21 can gain admittance is to be accompanied by someone within the acceptable age range.

The other teen-age dance spots in Orange County--Disneyland’s Videopolis and Knott’s Berry Farm’s Studio K--do not have such age restrictions. And Peck, for one, appreciates being solely in the company of her peers.

“Some places, like Studio K, are just stupid because you can be 5 or 80 and still get in,” she complained. “Who wants to be with a bunch of kids or an old man who is trying to hit on you?”

Said Goodfellow: “Places like that (amusement park dance facilities) are for seventh-graders or the really trendy crowd.”

Jessica Beck, a junior at Hacienda Heights Wilson High School, said, “They play better music here at Zzapp compared to Studio K. All of my friends come here.”

Zzapp, before its name changed last October, had spent two years as the teen-age nightclub Sensations, which Schroeder also owned.

He has been in the business in Orange County since 1981.

“I’ve seen 15 to 20 teen nightclubs open and close in the last seven years because of poor management and problems with drugs, alcohol or violence,” Schroeder said.

“Anaheim had had other teen nightclubs in the past, and the city was very unhappy with them, but I sold them (the City Council) on the idea that I could run it the way they wanted teen nightclubs to be run.

“Zzapp has never been reprimanded by the city for any problems most teen nightclubs encounter (drugs, alcohol and violence),” Schroeder said. “We were actually congratulated for our success at a recent City Council meeting.”

Admission to Zzapp is $7, but the nightclub sells membership to its Z-Club for a $10 annual fee.

Membership privileges include $5 admissions, a subscription to a monthly newsletter that keeps members informed of improvements in the club and upcoming events, and admission to the second floor of Zzapp, which has been used as a recording studio by artists such as Debbie Deb, J.J. Fab, Stacie Q and the Cover Girls. The room is decorated with carpeted walls, and Schroeder refers to it as a “kind of celebrity hangout.”

Teen-agers can lose their Z-Club memberships, Schroeder warned, if they do not frequent Zzapp at least once every six weeks. “It is a reward for kids who come on a regular basis,” he said.

Presently, there’s a list of 30 to 40 teen-agers waiting to become club members.

Because no alcohol is present--Zzapp serves only 12-ounce soft drinks for $1--the club has an appeal to teen-agers who don’t attend parties because of drinking and drugs.

“I wouldn’t go to a party. I’m not that type,” said Pam Rogers, a Sunny Hills senior. “I go out more for the dancing and meeting of new people.”

Rogers went to Zzapp recently with a friend.

“When we got there, we spent a half an hour standing around, but then two guys asked us to dance,” she said. “They looked decent, so we danced and talked with them and we left at about midnight.”

Rogers thought Zzapp was “all right,” but said she wouldn’t go there again because the atmosphere was too “rough.”

“I guess I was expecting it to be what you see on TV, like ‘American Bandstand,’ ” she said. “But they (the management) were frisking people outside the entrance and there seemed to be a lot of gangs there. I just wouldn’t want to go again.”

Schroeder employs 15 security guards, a head bouncer and he even takes a turn patrolling the grounds. He said that most of the time his crew works in a relatively “pleasant atmosphere.”

“Right now, the security crew is not having to do more than 15 minutes of real security work each week,” he said.

Security guards patrol the club’s parking lot, and two guards, one male and one female, stand at its entrance to make sure no drugs, alcohol or weapons are carried onto the premises.

“The kids that get searched are the ones who look or are acting suspicious,” Schroeder said. “We have to keep an eye out, but we’ve never had anyone get hurt.”

One of the primary reasons Zzapp hasn’t been forced to close its doors, Schroeder reasons, is because of the way his employees handle substance abuse problems.

If anyone is found intoxicated or in possession of drugs or alcohol on Zzapp’s premises, the police are immediately called to handle the situation.

Schroeder conceded, however, that some teen-agers do arrive drunk and do sometimes get away with it. However, he said he feels his nightclub is performing more of a “public service” by keeping these teen-agers in a controlled area where they can burn off the alcohol’s effect by dancing.

“At parties, people won’t stop drinking when they’ve had enough,” Peck said. “At the club, the buzz wears off and people don’t get angry so easily.”

Schroeder said attendance on Friday nights is lighter, usually around 400. On Saturdays, attendance hovers near the club’s capacity of 1,000.

Zzapp doesn’t have a dress code, but Schroeder said there are limits. “Nothing excessively revealing in clothing for women, no shorts until it gets warmer . . .

“We strongly encourage them to dress up. We offer discounts in our newsletters for girls in dresses and guys in ties. There’s some peer pressure to dress up, and we try to make it financially better if they do.”

Once inside the club, teen-agers seem to prefer to dance in groups to fast songs, but there are couples and slow dancing, too.

“That’s one thing that’s a change from school dances,” Peck said. “Guys you don’t know will ask you to slow dance. But most people just dance with the groups they come with.”

Melanie Mohler, a senior at Rosary High School, put it simply: “Zzapp is a fun place to go because there are a lot of cute guys here. It’s a place to dance with your friends and there isn’t a lot of violence.”

To get a better idea of what Zzapp is all about, prospective dancers might try tuning in to the “Zzapp” TV show, which will make its debut today on KDOC-Channel 56 at 10 a.m.

Produced at the club and featuring the dancing of Z-Club members, the weekly show will be similar to other dance shows--including celebrity appearances by rock ‘n’ roll stars--and Schroeder promises viewers they will see “exactly what it’s like to be at Zzapp.”

“It’s just a place that provides a safe and entertaining environment,” he said. “Not exactly anti-Establishment but not traditional, either.”