Where It’s At--for the Teen Set : Hangouts range from quiet to raucous

Some things never change. Teen-age boy wants to meet girl; teen-age girl wants to meet boy, and they hope to meet this weekend.

But some things do change. Like where they are when they meet, and how much supervision they’ll have when they do.

Among the ways North County teen-agers are spending their weekend nights out: drinking in parking lots or at house parties where there are no adults; dancing at clubs that prohibit alcohol and enforce a dress code; discussing poetry and sipping coffee.

For some, school activities take center stage. And, on any given Friday or Saturday night, there are thousands of teens who’ve gone to the movies with friends, or are at home eating pizza and watching videos.

As in every area, North County has its teen hangouts. Some are comfortable, some charged with danger. Here is some of what was happening on recent weekends:

THE PARKING LOT

Cindy (not her real name) is 15 years old and looking a little concerned. As she crosses her legs at a picnic table set up outside Roberto’s No. 2 taco stand along Escondido’s East Valley Parkway, she wants to know if she looks fat.

“Why?” asks a visitor.

“I don’t want to look fat in case the cops come by.”

“Why would you care if the cops thought you were fat?”

“I wouldn’t want them to see this.”

From underneath her brown wool jacket, Cindy pulls out a fifth of whiskey. Her friends are inside Roberto’s buying cups of ice. It’s 9:30 on a Saturday night and time to party.

“Are you 21 yet?” Cindy asks. “I just want you to hold it for me if the cops come.”

Cindy’s friend, age 14, thinks that’s a pretty good idea. She doesn’t want the cops to take her home, where her parents would give her trouble for drinking.

Collin (not his real name) is 19 and a veteran of the parking lot. Unlike the other heavy metal head-bangers standing around smoking and revving the engines in their old muscle cars or Harleys, Collin has short hair. He’s in college.

“I just hang around scamming on chicks,” he says, explaining why he comes to stand in a parking lot on a cold Saturday night. “If it doesn’t look like I’m going to get any, I just go home.”

“You see her?” he says, indicating Cindy. “She’s the one, I think.”

A teen-age boy with black, fingerless gloves talks about the fight that broke out in the lot the night before. His account is studded with expletives. Just when he had his man down, somebody pulled a 9-millimeter pistol. An Uzi was flashed. The fight calmed down.

A friend of Cindy’s who is 17 walks out of Roberto’s with the cups of ice. She’s wearing a black leather jacket, cropped blond hair, four or five earring studs in each ear and a ring in her nostril. She places the cups down on the picnic table and begins to pour.

“If there’s a party, that dude’s goin’ to, let’s follow him,” says a boy in a Metallica shirt as another boy in a turbo-charged Chevy peels out of the lot crunching beer bottles along the way.

The gathering begins to break up. It looks as though Collin will go home empty-handed. The boy who described last night’s fight approaches another boy with a modified Mohwak haircut.

“You Mike?”

“No.”

“Good. My friend told me to try to find a guy named Mike with a flattop and beat the (expletive) out of ‘im.”

THE DANCE CLUB

At the Distillery East, a teen dance club on Metcalf Street in Escondido, three burly security guards watch the door. One patrols the street and parking lot. A strict dress code forbids anything looking like gang attire. Even school letterman jackets are out.

Not that anybody would wear school letterman jackets. The dress inside is more GQ and Vogue. Girls in tight miniskirts and high heels, with carefully placed hair and makeup, dance slowly with each other or in groups. Boys in black wingtips and trendy jackets circle the dance floor watching the girls dance. The girls outnumber the boys 3 to 1.

“That’s the way we like it,” smiles Todd, an 18-year-old from San Clemente. “We come down here every weekend.”

Juan Perez, chief of security at the Distillery, explains that he tries to maintain a “good environment for the kids.” A no-drinking policy in the surrounding lots is strictly enforced, and police are called at the first sign of trouble.

Rival gang members used to come to the club and fight, often with baseball bats. Now, says Perez, everybody is patted down for weapons, and security guards keep an eye on things inside and out.

The result is a safe night spot.

“We have a lot of parents who come and drop the kids off and pick them up,” Perez says proudly. A pickup cruises by slowly, and its occupants flash gang signs. “We don’t let that in here,” Perez says.

THE COFFEE HOUSE

John Hoffman, 17, and his friends are drinking coffee at the Metaphor coffeehouse on 2nd Street in Escondido. His friend Tyrone, “The Man,” is intent on a chess game with another friend, Mike.

Tyrone, small and thin, looking bookish behind his glasses, is dressed in a houndstooth sport coat, a fedora with a feather tucked in the band, a narrow tie and a white shirt. Mike has both ears pierced, looking the part of the literature major he plans to be.

They don’t buy the pep rally scene, don’t join clubs and don’t have the nihilistic outlook of the head-banger. They’d be able to define nihilistic . They will be going to UC San Diego, Berkeley and small private colleges. John is going to England to play drums.

“We like it here,” says John. “It has cool music. It’s not uptight. There’s no pressure to be cool or to act. We just come inside, drink coffee, tell bad jokes. When Tyrone gets wild, he flips the brim of his hat up.”

Sometimes the group will hang out at Denny’s, any Denny’s, since the coffee refills are free and the waitresses don’t hassle them. They’ll sip and eat burgers until midnight, maybe play another game of chess.

THE HOUSE PARTY

Stephanie (not her real name), age 15, and four of her friends caught a ride to this house party, now raging a few blocks from San Dieguito High School in Encinitas. She shouted down a car on a Del Mar street to get here. She is painfully drunk but ready to party.

“It’s only 10:30. It’s too early to stop partying. We should have brought some of Scott’s (not his real name) weed. . . . I really love Scott, but he is such a (expletive)! I kissed him twice tonight, and he asked me out, but no way.”

“Stephanie,” says her friend, “you’re bleeding all over the place.”

Stephanie injured herself when she tripped running for the ride to the party. Blood is pouring from her wound.

“If my dad sees this, he’ll kill me. He caught me drunk and having a party once, and he doesn’t trust me at all,” she says.

According to Stephanie, parties like this one are her and her friends’ major entertainment, aside from dating. Sometimes they travel down to Mission Beach and hang around the roller coaster.

“It is soooo cool there. We party there a lot,” Stephanie says.

About 50 teen-agers holding beer cans stand around at the end of a dirt driveway as Stephanie and her friends pull in. There are at least several dozen kids closer to the house. They eye the car, and a few self-appointed bouncers take a good look inside to see that no unwanted people have arrived.

Mostly, the kids stand around and talk, usually about members of the opposite sex. Romances are begun and ended in the space of a few minutes.

But Stephanie’s problem now isn’t Scott, his weed or romance. Her ride is leaving.

“Why don’t we ever have rides?” whines a friend.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get my license in March,” slurs Stephanie.

THE BASKETBALL GAME

A number roughly equal to the teen-agers at the house party are spending their Friday night watching a Torrey Pines High School basketball game.

In a scene that may as well have been lifted from the 1950s (except for the cellular phone held up to one parent’s ear), cheerleaders cheer, girlfriends sigh and parents’ chests expand as Torrey Pines sweeps to an easy victory over Ipswich of Australia by a score of 113-36.

After the game, young siblings of the players toss basketballs across the gym floor, as students talk about what to do after the game. Some are going to go home, others out for food. Some traditions never change.

The attraction of school sports events has crossed several generations. But, in earlier decades, the game might well have been the gathering place of the evening. That is less likely today.

At the Torrey Pines game, for example, there are about 100 students in the stands, most of whom seem to be friends or relatives of the players. There are about 2,000 students at the school.

THE SOCIAL CLUB

Friday Night Live is a social group started earlier this year by students at San Dieguito High School. The group, which organizes activities such as bowling and ice skating parties, is sanctioned by the San Dieguito student government and the school.

With 150 members, Friday Night Live is one of the more successful organized groups on campus. Similar groups have been established at other high schools throughout the county.

According to Simone van der Molen, a 17-year-old senior and a member of the San Dieguito group, all a student needs to do to join is sign a membership form with personal data and a pledge not to drink or use drugs at the events.

Group members meet on Wednesdays to decide on a weekend activity. Usually they can negotiate a group discount with the facility where they want to meet.

“We average about 30 to 40 kids for each activity. All and any kids are in it, and it is not uncool at all. Our main goal is to party drug- and alcohol-free,” Van der Molen said.

Just before Christmas, Friday Night Live organized a caroling party. Nearly 100 students sang for the residents at a senior citizens home near their school, then went to a cafe for hot chocolate.

Although that may seem a bit tame to some students, Van der Melon thinks times are changing.

So does Kyle Yonemura, 17, student government vice president at San Dieguito and also a member of Friday Night Live.

“We’ve been hearing a lot of statistics about drinking and that you can have fun without drinking,” he said. “We are finally listening.”