OJAI : Club Offers Teens a Place to Hang Out

Three nights a week, up to 185 teen-agers walk, skateboard, bicycle or drive to Ojai’s Sarzotti Park, to the relief of area adults.

The Exclusive Membership Club takes over the Jack Boyd Community Center on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.

“It’s the only place we can go to do anything,” said Sarah McCaslin, 15, of Oak View.

Ojai parents have worked 30 years to establish a club where teen-agers can find good, clean fun.

“Our goal is to offer kids a nonalcoholic, non-drug place for them to hang out,” said staff member Joe Zelenka, 32.

Once open to all, the program was shut down in January after an Ojai boy was slashed with a knife and two young adults were arrested after a rumble that involved two dozen youths.

City officials and the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department blamed the melee on a Ventura street gang, the Pierpont Rats, who jumped out of trees and broke up a football tournament with baseball bats, billy clubs, beer bottles and knives.

The program reopened in April after a student advisory board recommended that access be limited to card-carrying members of the new Exclusive Membership Club. Members must be Ojai Valley residents between 12 and 19. Guests’ IDs are checked by adults at the door.

Youths play volleyball, basketball, football, pool and Ping-Pong, and occasionally have a dance. On warm nights, they just gather on the lawn.

“When we get a sound system inside, we’ll move the kids inside,” Zelenka said. Four adults are on hand each night, including Zelenka, two Sheriff’s Department cadets and a veteran Recreation Department employee.

Zelenka said the newly reopened club hasn’t had a problem with drugs or alcohol. “If we see it, we know how to get rid of it.”

The biggest problem is keeping kids from hanging around in the parking lot, the adults said.

Jason Rodarte, 16, of Ojai said he joined the club to stay out of trouble and because all his friends are there. “This is where I met my old girlfriend,” he said, noting that he’s looking for another one.