Bogart’s Closes in a ‘Mighty Blow’ to Local Scene : Pop music: The venue featured cutting-edge touring acts and was a place where young bands could get experience and win a following.

Bogart’s has closed, ending its run of more than six years as the hub of the local grass-roots music scene for Long Beach and Orange County. Owner Richard Greco could not be reached Wednesday to elaborate on his decision to close the club.

Since switching from a Top 40 format to original alternative rock in 1987, the 300-capacity venue booked a steady stream of shows, featuring cutting-edge touring attractions and serving as a nurturing ground where young bands on the local scene could gain experience and win a following.

The club’s final concert was a show Saturday by Firehose, the San Pedro band that had been a regular Bogart’s headliner. Stephen Zepeda, who has booked Bogart’s since 1989, said that Greco informed him Wednesday that the club’s December schedule was canceled and that it would not reopen.

“I’m not surprised. Bogart’s has been on the way out for a while,” Zepeda said. “I think he felt there was no point in going through December, which is the worst part of the year for concerts. Most people are not really focused on club-going at Christmastime.”

Greco, a Fullerton resident whose family has owned the club since the late 1970s, had said earlier this year that several factors were pointing toward Bogart’s closing in the near future. Plans to renovate the Marina Pacifica Mall, where the club is located, figured to displace Bogart’s. And Greco himself had begun a new full-time career in the construction business.

“I’ve got to figure out life after Bogart’s,” Greco said at the time. “Right now (between the club and his job with a firm based in Carlsbad in San Diego County), I’m burning the candle at both ends.”

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Zepeda, highly respected for his enthusiasm for the music he books and for his devotion to developing the local alternative-rock scene, said that business at Bogart’s during 1993 has been “pretty break-even, if that. The economy has hurt the place. People can’t afford to pay for a ticket and buy drinks, too.”

“I think it’s going to be a mighty blow” for alternative rock in Orange County, said David Hayes, president of Doctor Dream Records, the Orange-based label that has signed many bands that used Bogart’s as a launching pad and home club. “It’s sad, considering we have such a sparse club scene as it is for national acts. That doesn’t leave much for Orange County.

“It was the only club that had national acts and cool alternative bands that was consistently in business doing great shows,” Hayes added. “I hope somebody sees the opportunity to open a club in Orange County to fill the gap. We have such a community of music-lovers here, and you either have to drive to San Juan Capistrano (home to the Coach House) or to L.A. There are no rooms here doing touring national acts and alternative music.”

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Sam Lanni, who was co-owner of Safari Sam’s, a fabled Huntington Beach club that was driven out of business by city officials in the mid-’80s, said the Bogart’s closing has hit him harder than the closing of his own club.

“At least when Safari Sam’s closed, there were other places (in Orange County) where I could go see shows,” said Lanni, who has remained active managing bands on the local rock scene.

“Now it means I have to drive to Los Angeles and put up with all the elitism that goes on there. It could push me to open a club. I’d want to talk to some people about it, but something’s got to happen. Orange County is too big a market not to have a decent club that has local bands and touring acts, and (where a ticket) isn’t going to cost $25 a night like the Coach House.”

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Like others, Lanni had high praise for the job Zepeda has done since taking over booking in 1989 from Dave Swinson, the promoter who first established Bogart’s as a strong alternative music venue.

“He is the best booking agent I’ve encountered in a long time,” Lanni said. “I’ve talked to a lot of agents across the country. He is into the music and into promoting and making shows work.”

“It’s a real bummer,” said Dan Root, singer-guitarist of the Long Beach/Orange County band One Hit Wonder. “I hope Steve moves on to another location in the area. He’s a real stand-up guy who has always treated the bands really fair, and I always trusted him.

“Rich (Greco) and the other guys at the club were always cool,” Root said. “I guess it’s devastating to the Long Beach music scene. When we needed people (from record labels) to come see us, that’s where we went, because we knew that we could set up a show there and it would sound good. It’s hard for us to get into the Roxy or Whisky or one of the better-sounding L.A. clubs. But if we told Steve we needed to do a show, he’d take care of us.”

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Zepeda said he hopes to continue working as a concert promoter.

“I’ve been talking to various people about various ideas, but nothing has really hit me yet,” he said. “For me, it has to be the right thing, or I prefer not to do it.

“It’s a question of finding the right people who want to invest in the music scene,” Zepeda said. “Richard’s into the music, and he’s a really cool boss. By and large, most people that own clubs really don’t care about the scene so much as they profit off it.”

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The Bogart’s closing could open the field to two Orange County clubs that have a similar capacity. Club 5902 (formerly Night Moves) in Huntington Beach has a long history of doing alternative-rock shows, but it also has had a history of management upheaval that has prevented it from developing anything approaching the stability Bogart’s offered.

The Electric Circus, a new club in Buena Park, also can hold 300 people, and owner Allen Ornstein said that Bogart’s closing could lead him to expand its live alternative-rock offerings from two nights a week to three.

“No wonder every band’s calling,” Ornstein said. “I imagine we’ll pick up those pieces,” now that Bogart’s is gone.