Disco’s a Minor Matter at Ozz

With so few places open to 18- to 20-year-olds with aspirations of a social life and a penchant for dancing, Ozz in Buena Park is a dream come true. The club recently opened Sunday and Thursday nights to patrons 18 and over, featuring a more technofied disco slant on those nights than during the rest of the week.

The deejays spin dance hits from black American pop and R&B; artists (Madonna among the few exceptions) and their white British imitators, with a sprinkling of techno throughout. The music is helped along by a multicolored light system, disco balls and occasional smoke.

Although it draws a good share of straight singles and couples, Ozz ranks among Orange County’s most popular gay clubs. Harking back to those long gone supper and dance nightclubs, Ozz serves guests steak and seafood in a simply elegant dining area, then gives them the opportunity to either head over to the adjoining dance area to work it off or retire to the cabaret lounge for a grand piano act. But if you want the whole package, come for eats and the cabaret show early; by 11 p.m. everything shuts down except the game room and discotheque, which rages, even on Sunday night, till 2 a.m.

The two 18-and-over nights draw only about half of the 600 people who cram themselves in on weekend evenings and these are mostly men, although organizers say they are working to attract more gay women.

Of the two nights, Generation X Thursdays draws the biggest crowd. Sunday’s following, however, comes for more than just the disco beat that pumps almost continuously through the night. When the music stops, all attention goes to the female impersonation show, “Girls of Deception,” which begins sometime between 10 and 11 p.m. and lasts for an hour.

As show time nears, the medium-sized dance floor is transformed into a cocktail bar with chairs and tiny round tables. Patrons take seats there or at surrounding bar stools. The focus shifts from the bar to the makeshift stage as an orchestrated Las Vegas-style version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” kicks off the production.

The cast features six divas-for-the-night plus a special guest, who lip synch to the kind of Top 40 hits that have a distinct goddess attitude on love, money and men. Show producer and director Tracye Montclair says the choice to do an MTV format over “the typical drag show of show tunes and Streisand hits” is a direct result of the younger crowd. “That stuff just doesn’t appeal to this generation,” says the 14-year veteran of female impersonation.

Dancing, accepting dollar bills from the audience and proving generally entertaining, the wanna-be video vixens sport such starlet-like names as Veronica Del Rio, Britney Halston, Cege, and Sabrina the Asian Princess. Halston, a long-legged knock-out, does a fabulously believable Whitney Houston.

Admission to the show and disco is a reasonable $3.50 for those aged 21 and over, $5 for minors. Those looking for a real low-budget night, however, should stay away from the cocktails, which are $3.50 to $5.50 for mostly ice. Bottled beer is the drink of choice here--$2.50 for Bud and Miller labels, $3 for Corona and Heineken. Sodas are $2.

A plastic bracelet separates the legal drinkers from the minors, so bring your ID--no wristband without it no matter how old you look.

Dress is casual to fashionable, with the most extreme of the latter left to those gals who are not what they seem.

* Ozz, 6231 Manchester Blvd., Buena Park. 18 and over nights on Sundays and Thursdays, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Cover: $5 for minors, $3.50 for ages 21 and over. (714) 522-1542.