Out From Behind the Eight Ball : Recreation: Pool halls are back, but they are not the dingy, smoke-filled rooms celebrated in the movies. Many of them try to appeal to families.

To David Chartier, the sign at Break Zone Billiards in Torrance says it all about what has happened to his favorite game: “No alcoholic beverages. No gambling. No chewing tobacco. No foul language.”

There are no pool sharks here. No barroom brawls. Little smoke to speak of. Rather, this is a family place, a far cry from the image presented by old movies such as “The Hustler.”

Throughout Southern California, bar owners and pool veterans are riding a resurgence of the game. They want their halls to appeal to families or, if liquor is served, to yuppies.

“We keep the music low, don’t allow gang attire, and that attracts a different type of crowd,” said Chartier, 44, who opened Break Zone with his sister a little over a year ago. “And this is a game that anyone can play, (like) a grandfather with a grandson.”

The pool club now attracts about 400 players a week, with Friday nights packed with teen-agers and families.

“There’s one woman who comes in regularly with her kid in a stroller,” said Viky Boyd, Chartier’s niece and the manager of the hall. She also edits “Breaking News,” a newspaper catering to billiard halls.

*

The new pool halls that do serve liquor are also trying to appeal to an upscale, office crowd.

Gotham, a poolroom that opened on Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade a year ago, features purple-felt tables and a hip crowd that sips $3-plus imported beers.

Mr. Pockets, a Manhattan Beach pool hall that opened 27 years ago, recently underwent a major renovation that included higher ceilings and a mahogany and glass decor, plus more video screens and seven additional pool tables.

In Hermosa Beach, a seven-table upscale pool hall called Shark’s Cove will soon take the place of a hardware store on Hermosa Avenue.

The owners of the Velvet Turtle on Sepulveda Boulevard in Torrance plan to convert the restaurant into the National Sports Grill & Bar, which will have a centerpiece of 16 pool tables. Alcohol will be served, but the crowd is expected to be more upscale than blue collar, with grilled meals and fancy beers available. There will even be valet parking.

“It’s not a tavern,” said Alan Fronke, vice president of operations for Newport Beach-based American Restaurant Group, which owns both the Velvet Turtle and National Sports Grill & Bar chains.

When people speak of pool halls, he said, “They think, ‘Hey, trouble.’ But once they see what it is, they see that it appeals to an upscale clientele.”

*

It’s not that the old-style halls are disappearing; there are a half-dozen in the South Bay. Restaurant analysts, however, attribute the new pool halls to the changing nature of nighttime entertainment, especially for the twentysomething and yuppie crowds.

“People don’t want to drink like they used to,” said Janet Lowder, who owns Restaurant Management Services, a consulting firm in Rancho Palos Verdes. “They don’t want to just go to a bar anymore. They want to be entertained.”

At the Break Zone on Thursday, Charlie Meyer and Bill Griebenow, both commercial real estate brokers in Torrance, ate sandwiches and shot pool on their lunch hour.

“This game is just a different way to deal with all the craziness of the day,” said Griebenow, 50, as he and Meyer started their third game.

Both men have played pool most of their lives, and each recalls playing in smoky rooms with streetwise characters.

“Did you see ‘The Color of Money’?” Meyer said. “I played in a lot of places that looked like those joints. They’re still around, but I would rather be here.”

Boyd and Chartier “could probably make a lot more if they served alcohol, but people come in here to play pool, not to drink,” he said.

Nearby, Julie Sanchez, 28, of Redondo Beach, took a break from her bookkeeping job to play with a friend, Deidre Wanlass.

“I don’t know why people play,” said Wanlass, 21, of Hermosa Beach. “Maybe because it’s trendy, or maybe because they have nothing better to do.”

Sanchez has a 7-year-old son who plays, often in friends’ recreation rooms.

When Chartier started playing pool in the early 1960s, the presence of Sanchez or any woman in a pool hall would have raised eyebrows.

“They used to say a woman wouldn’t be caught dead in a poolroom,” he said.

Growing up in Inglewood, he would often clean tables to play for free. While in his 20s--and in between service as an Army medic--he held odd jobs and took monthlong trips by motor home, hustling in 30 states, and earning the nickname “Underdog” for his unlikely victories over pool sharks.

“It’s relaxing, and it’s impossible to play if your mind is elsewhere,” Chartier said. “No matter how good you play, you can always improve. And for me, until I beat everyone in the world, I won’t be happy.”

He operated his own poolroom in Bellflower from 1987 to 1989, when it closed because a much larger billiard hall opened next door.

Three years later, he and his sister, Diane Boyd, moved to Torrance. They thought of serving alcohol, but decided to avoid the hassle of obtaining a city permit.

“It’s still tough. You still have a lot of people who think it’s trouble in River City,” said Boyd, who met resistance when she approached other cities. No such trouble occurred in Torrance because they had building permits from the previous tenant that ensured quick approval as long as they did not seek to sell alcohol.

Indeed, residents who live near the proposed National Sports Grill & Bar were wary of the new place, fearing a rowdier crowd from the mix of beer and billiards.

“Who’s going to use 16 pool tables?” asked Lenore Johnson, who lives in the nearby New Horizons gated community of houses and condos. “It’s certainly not a neighborhood thing. It’s not the pool, but the noise at 2 o’clock. Who’s going to be playing until then?”

Owners of the chain have agreed to install a 10-foot buffer between New Horizons and the rear of the bar, and the Planning Commission will require valet parking to deter people from noisily walking to their cars.

Still, the owners of the new wave billiard halls wonder how many pool halls the South Bay can support.

“The same thing happened after ‘The Hustler’ came out,” Boyd said. “People jumped in and opened up their own places. But only the good ones will survive.”