Group Meets : Teen Activities Sought to Halt Noise, Trouble

Holding a street dance or creating an outdoor hangout for teen-agers were among suggestions offered Thursday by city officials and community leaders trying to come up with nighttime weekend activities for northwest San Fernando Valley youths.

The suggestions surfaced at a meeting called by Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson, who said he is concerned about noise and property damage resulting from area youths gathering in parking lots or at large house parties.

Los Angeles police, who plan to visit northwest Valley high schools next month to inform students about the city’s curfew law, said that dispersing groups of youths is diverting more than 20% of the Devonshire Division’s patrol resources on weekend nights.

“That means there’s not a police car where the burglar is or where the vandal is,” Police Capt. John Moran told 25 people during the meeting at a Northridge restaurant.

Bernson said that the diversion of police resources is “a serious problem” and that the meeting was to seek alternative youth activities that he called “a good, wholesome, safe time and not a nuisance.”

The outdoor “hangout” might be established at a remote park or a parking lot in Chatsworth’s industrial district, the group suggested. Some supervision would be necessary to keep out drugs and alcohol, but the youths ought to have considerable say in organizing the activities, Bernson said.

Some of the representatives of the business community, the city Parks and Recreation Department and the Police Department were skeptical about whether such a gathering could be kept under control.

“You’re asking for trouble,” said Olga Singer, West Valley director for the city Parks Department. Rowdy youths from outside the community could disrupt such an event, Singer said.

Bernson admitted later that keeping out alcohol and drugs could be difficult. But he and others in the group warned that too much supervision could cause youths to stay away.

Tyson Furubotten, a 17-year-old Chatsworth High School senior who was one of two teen-agers at the meeting, said he and his peers “just need a place where it’s open . . . Everyone wants to meet people, have a place where they can play their stereos and show off their cars.”

Police Capt. Mark Stevens suggested that one way to test the “hangout” idea might be to block off a public street for a dance. The street could be a major thoroughfare closed until midnight, if public or private funds were available for traffic control and security, Stevens said.

The city’s curfew law prohibits those under 18 from being outdoors after 10 p.m. without a parent or guardian unless they are en route to or from a public event or job.

Stanley Arnold, a board member of the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce, suggested that the establishment of a “teen center,” or an indoor gathering place for youth-oriented social events.

Bernson said the group will meet again early next year to try to decide on a proposed solution.

“We’re not going to solve this overnight,” he said.