Dance Finds Shelter in Pasadena

It’s only a dozen miles from the Sunset Strip to Pasadena’s Old Town, but in club culture, that’s light years. Historically, the Strip would be an old-line Pasadena resident’s vision of the road to hell.

Clubs on the Strip tend to reflect the boulevard--garish, show biz-oriented, with lots of out-of-towners who have come looking for whatever pleasures Sunset is supposed to offer.

At the opposite end of the late-night spectrum, Colorado Boulevard in Old Town is a family-oriented shopping area. It’s a street for walking, not street walkers, an Eddie Bauer fashion show rather than Azzedine Alaia.

Locals might come in the evening for a stroll, dinner and a movie, then be back in the morning for breakfast. Here, the coffee shops are packed about the time some denizens of the Strip would be calling it a night.

It’s to this brave new world of Pasadena’s revitalized consumer walkway that the owners of Roxbury, one of the Strip’s most successful clubs, have made their first expansion with the opening of Club Shelter. (Another club in Orange County is scheduled to open in March.)

“I really believe there’s a call for this in this part of town,” said co-owner/designer Chris Breed. “Before we opened, people in the Valley were always given a cheap version of Hollywood--this is a nice, classy place.”

Though Breed’s geographic sense--locating Pasadena in the Valley--might be off, his sense of what works in a club usually isn’t. Roxbury has managed to remain packed for three years, ages in the fickle world of club-going, and in the month it’s been open Shelter has been full as well.

Clubgoer Andrea Abenoza attributes this to Pasadena’s “getting really hip--it’s the new Westwood.”

Pasadena is also a major new market, which is what attracted Breed. Besides the local colleges, he points to the upcoming Super Bowl and, especially, the final eight games of the World Cup soccer tournament that will be played at the Rose Bowl in 1994. Two-million visitors are expected for the soccer alone.

“I’ve got the T-shirts already printed,” jokes Breed.

While he waits for the soccer fanatics, business is still very good. On a recent Saturday night, a 150-person line had formed outside the club by 9, and by 11:30 the club’s 600-patron limit easily had been met.

One major difference between Roxbury and Shelter is that this is a first-come, first-served line. The doorman doesn’t choose who gets in, as happens at Roxbury.

“We found out right away they didn’t like that out here,” says Breed. “They find it very offensive.”

What the patrons, who are almost entirely in their early 20s, get when they’ve made it past the velvet ropes is a room done in a style Breed describes as “industrial Gothic with a little Victorian thrown in.”

This translates into a two-level 12,000-square-foot hall with sponge-washed walls in browns and grays, exposed wood beams and exposed heating ducts.

And even if garish ‘70s disco pinks have given way to ‘90s patina, there is no doubt this is a hard-core dance club.

Name: Club Shelter.

Location: 40 S. Pasadena Ave. (entrance is on Martin Alley a few feet south of the corner of Colorado Boulevard and Pasadena Avenue), (818) 577-4040.

Open: Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 9 p.m. until 2 a.m.

Cost: Entry is $10 on Friday and Saturday; $8 Thursday. Beers are $3 for domestic, $3.50 for imported; drinks are $4 and $4.50.

Door Policy: Dress is “casual but nice.” Entrants get a quick once-over with a hand-held metal detector.