Muzak Attack : Store Pipes Classical Music Into Parking Lot to Keep Youths Away

They tried police patrols, curfews on arcade games and bright lights.

Now officials at Southland Corp. are hoping that Thousand Oaks youths who hear the violin strains of a Brandenburg concerto at their local 7-Eleven store will take their Slurpees and run.

For two weeks now, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, Southland has been dousing the store with Muzak as a sort of defense system against hordes of loitering youths, hoping to drive them away. On Friday night, the selection of classical music was on target.

“It puts me to sleep,” said Scott Linder, 26, as he stood outside the store with a group of about 10 friends.

Kurt Wolf, 20, had harsher words about the selection of chamber music that was being blasted into the convenience store’s parking lot through a pair of tinny speakers

“It will keep us away,” he said. “But they’re torturing themselves more than us because they have to sit inside and listen to it.”

Joe Gomes, Southland’s operations manager for Ventura County, said the Thousand Oaks store at 3309 Kimber Drive is one of six in Southern California that is being subjected to the unusual musical experiment. By playing Muzak, Southland hopes to drive away loiterers who hang out at the 24-hour convenience stores and harass other customers. So far, Gomes said, it is working.

“It’s acting like a teen-age repellent,” Gomes said. Teen-agers “think that if they’re going to camp out at any location, they’re not going to do it with that kind of music playing.”

It has worked so well, Gomes said, that Southland will widen the circle to Los Angeles County, including the San Fernando Valley communities of Woodland Hills, North Hollywood and Lakeview Terrace.

Those stores are expected to begin piping Muzak into their parking lots within a week.

Almost every weekend, Ventura County Sheriff’s Department patrol cars are summoned to the parking lot to break up groups of up to 100 youths. So far, Deputy Chris Lathrop says he has not noticed a significant decline in calls. However, the deputy, who admits he is a country-Western fan, said he is keeping an open mind.

“If it’s working at the 7-Eleven, we’ll be happy to recommend it to other stores that have similar problems,” Lathrop said.

“If it isn’t,” he added, “at least the store has pleasant music to listen to.”

Gomes refused to say how much Southland is paying to play Muzak. But he described the cost as “relatively inexpensive.” After about three or four months, Southland will decide whether it should continue, he said.