Disneyland Keeps Watch Over ‘Locals’ : Recreation: Security officials says pass-holding teen-agers often cause problems at the amusement park. But young people say they are being harassed.

On the streets of The Happiest Place on Earth, they are Public Enemy No. 1.

Their crimes include hogging park benches near the Tomorrowland Terrace, congregating in large groups and peddling counterfeit admissions to the park.

These are the “locals,” the teen-agers from nearby neighborhoods with annual or seasonal passes to Disneyland and their parents’ blessings to spend endless hours there because it is the safest drug-free hangout around.

But just about every weekend, the locals engage in nightlong games of cat and mouse with security officers.

The youths say it has become harassment. Some report being detained for hours in a tiny room at the park security office or having their $85 to $185 passes confiscated with little explanation. Others say they have registered complaints at Disneyland’s City Hall without result.

Disney officials say they have never ejected a young guest without reason. Security officials become concerned when a group of teen-agers totals between 20 and 30 or when teen-agers become belligerent with other guests, said Karl Andrews, park security director.

As a result, Andrews said, some uncooperative locals have been escorted to the gate. Records are kept on teen-agers who have had several run-ins with security, and their pictures are pasted in a mug album.

Of particular concern this summer, Andrews said, are the teen-agers who use clear tape and hair spray to transfer the Disneyland ink stamps on their hands to friends or buyers outside the park. The stamps allow guests to re-enter the park without charge.

Last month, a Disney security crackdown on the counterfeit stamps netted between 15 and 20 teen-agers. They were turned over to Anaheim police on suspicion of petty theft.

Disneyland President Jack Lindquist said of the problem with young locals: “This isn’t the first summer this happens. For 37 years, we’ve been baby-sitting Anaheim and Orange County young people.”

But Lindquist said the tide may be turning.

“I think the word is generally out and around in Orange County that if you’re looking to raise hell, don’t go to Disneyland because you’ll be out $28.75. We’re not picking on teen-agers. We’re consistent.”

Still, Lindquist said he plans to meet before summer ends with a group of the young pass-holders and their parents to discuss the park’s security concerns.

“We can’t let a small group take over areas of the park,” Lindquist said. “Part of the success of Disneyland is to mix young and old, married and dating couples. Mixing all those, there is a potential for volatility.

“For years, parents have felt confident to send their kids here because of the security,” he said. “We’re proud of that and don’t want that to change. But we expect something from the kids, too.”

Yet parents, some of whom have organized car pools to take their children and friends to and from the park each weekend night, say the same security force they have trusted to keep their children safe is enforcing two sets of rules: a lenient set for vacationing tourists and another that amounts to the bum’s rush for those young guests who live just beyond the park’s well-kept property.

“Disneyland is on my bad list,” said Vicky Young of Anaheim, whose 15-year-old daughter said she was detained, questioned and escorted out of the park late one evening for sitting too long on a park bench.

“They make it inviting for them to be there and treat them like this.”

For youths and security officers, the flash points have been confined to a small area in Tomorrowland, just outside the exit to the Circle Vision attraction and the park’s Premier Gift Shop. The area has become a popular meeting place for local teen-agers who flock to the park almost every weekend night to hear rock bands perform on the Tomorrowland Terrace.

Between music sets, Andrews said, crowds of youths gather near the Circle Vision and gift shop exit, blocking it. They also use the phones inside the shop, preventing other guests from making calls. On those occasions, the security chief said, officers try to move the youths along.

“The telephone booths attract the kids like bees to honey,” Lindquist said.

But Chanda Roundtree, 15, and her friends say that Disneyland police are flexing too much muscle.

“They keep referring to us as ‘you people’ or ‘your kind’ and that having a pass is a privilege,” Chanda said. “There’s probably a couple of bad apples, but we’re not a bunch of juvenile delinquents.

“This is a place for us to come summer and winter,” she said. “I have my friends here. I don’t like staying at home. Here is the only place I’m allowed to go.”

Nickey Mosely, 14, a pass-holder who travels from Westminster to spend weekend evenings at the park, said she and her friends constantly watch for security officers.

“My grandmom likes us coming here because it’s safe, but now she might not let us come back next year because of the harassment,” Nickey said. One recent night, she said, she was chased from a phone booth by a guard.

“We are not all little animals,” Nickey said.

Nickey’s grandmother, Arline Hamley, said she has bought passes for her grandchildren for the past three years and has taken turns with their parents shuttling them to the park just after noon about three days a week, returning for them at night.

“It is a place where we have felt the kids have been pretty safe,” Hamley said. “Disneyland has always been a good place to be, but now I’m not so sure that is the case.”

Tensions apparently peaked about a month ago, Chanda said, when security officers asked 14-year-old Marty Fellbaum of Anaheim to move from his seat on the bench outside the Premier shop.

Marty asked to see a supervisor. He, Chanda and Brian Wilkerson, 19, of Costa Mesa, who asked to accompany Marty to security, were taken to the security office behind Space Mountain and placed in a “holding room.” One by one, they were removed from the room for questioning by officers, they said.

After a couple of hours, Marty’s picture was taken and his summer pass confiscated, and all three were asked to leave the park.

Lindquist said that in the security office Marty used profanity in speaking to one of the female officers. “As far as I’m concerned,” he said, “that is reason enough to pull a pass.”

“I’m hurt,” Marty’s mother, Janice Fellbaum, said. “I think people over there are taking things a little too far.”

She conceded that in years past her son had sometimes entered the park illegally by getting a hand “transfer” from someone. To avoid that, she said, Marty saved money given to him at Christmas to buy a summer pass.

“It’s better for him that he goes over there and not hang around here,” Janice Fellbaum said, pointing to a littered alley near the hotel where they live. “There are too many ways for him to get into trouble around here.”

Lindquist said he will review the park’s policies about refunding the cost of confiscated passes, including the incident involving Marty, but offered little hope that the pass will be returned to him.

For as long as the park has been open, Lindquist said, security officers have found themselves “baby-sitting” children whose families find it more economical to buy a season of rides on Splash Mountain than a stay at summer camp.

Lindquist recalled a summer several years ago when he learned that a woman would routinely drive to the park’s main gate early each summer morning, unload her son and daughter, between the ages 7 and 10, drive away and return at 5 p.m.

One day, park employees decided to follow the children.

“They spent most of the morning at Tom Sawyer Island,” Lindquist said. “About lunchtime, they went and had a hamburger and drink, and they returned to Tom Sawyer Island part of the afternoon.”

Some days, Lindquist said, employees noticed that the little girl would take afternoon naps on the island.

“It’s not something we’re promoting. I guess it’s been happening here since 1955.”