Last Tango at Marilyn’s Backstreet Disco : Entertainment: Health problems force owner to close the club, which was a popular, alcohol-free nightspot for teen-agers and young adults.

Marilyn’s Backstreet Disco, a South Lake Avenue dance club that provided a safe haven for teen-agers for 14 years, closed its doors Sunday.

Owner Marilyn Feldsher, whose once regular appearances at her club had diminished in the last two years, said she reluctantly closed Marilyn’s because poor health prevented her from continuing to manage it properly.

“I’ve run into severe health problems,” said the mother of six adult children, who is suffering from a degenerative spinal condition and now must use a walker.

Feldsher said she has sold the building, at 220 S. Lake Ave., to Panda Express, which plans to open a restaurant there.

On Sunday night, Feldsher said, about 450 well-wishers bid her farewell with lots of hugs, whistles and claps. “Then I went outside and cried for an hour,” she said.

“It’s kind of devastating,” she said. “It has been a big part of my life. I regret selling it because it was like a dream come true. It was almost like losing a child.”

Pasadena City Councilman William Thomson said he was saddened by the loss of Marilyn’s, which he described as the San Gabriel Valley’s only nightspot of its kind for teen-agers. He praised the club for providing a positive, alcohol-free environment for young adults.

“The sad part about it is there is not another place around for kids,” he said. “I think it’s going to create a void. There’s no place for kids to go on the weekends, particularly to dance and socialize.”

Jorge Leduzma, an operations assistant at the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce and a former Marilyn’s patron, said he fears that the club’s closure will mean young people might attend poorly supervised house parties and underground clubs in abandoned warehouses, where there is no age requirement but plenty of drugs and alcohol.

“I’ve been to one and will never go back,” he said, referring to an underground nightclub. “It’s a terrible environment to be in. It’s more dangerous for teen-agers who are willing to experiment with anything to fit in.”

Feldsher, 59, said she got the idea for the club, which caters to 16- to 21-year-olds, after some of her children became teen-agers and tried to get into adult nightclubs with fake IDs.

In December, 1978, her husband, who is a doctor, financed the purchase of the 7,500-square-foot building. Her children, who range in age from 23 to 37, used to work there as teen-agers.

Over the years, Feldsher was known to serve as counsel to some of the young adults who came to the discotheque regularly, some from as far away as Ontario and Beverly Hills.

“One girl came up to me and said, ‘I can’t talk to my mother. Would you talk to me?’ ” Feldsher said. “She was dating a boy who wanted to go further. I told her exactly what I told my daughters and sons, ‘You don’t.’ ”

Feldsher said she has received numerous calls from parents thanking her for running a safe place for their children.

Before entering the nightclub, purses, jackets, belts and beepers were checked. No alcoholic beverages were permitted. And no one wearing a cap, white T-shirt, torn jeans or tattered shoes was let inside. Customers were not readmitted once they had left.

While other teen nightclubs came and went, Marilyn’s stayed popular over the years by adapting its musical style to the current craze. Feldsher said she opened during the disco fad and adapted to punk, New Wave and the current Gothic faze.

“Years ago, when punk came in, kids would come in with orange or purple spiked hair,” Feldsher said. “Two years later they looked like normal kids again.”

Feldsher, however, conceded there were some problems with gang members in the beginning. She said neighbors living behind the club complained about youngsters throwing cans in their yards, honking car horns and playing their car radios too loudly.

The problems subsided when she hired 15 security officers to patrol inside the club and four outside.

Councilman Thomson said Feldsher did an excellent job of handling the minors.

Pasadena Police Sgt. Alex Uribe said that it has been many years since the department received complaints about noise, loitering and speeding cars.