Trouble in Old Pasadena Is the Price of Success : Redevelopment: The area has become one of the Los Angeles region’s hottest night spots. But public drunkenness and youthful rowdiness have come along for the ride.

It’s Friday night, and Old Pasadena is alive. Young adults in flannel shirts, leather jackets and boots cluster as tightly as racked pool balls, waiting to enter Q’s billiards parlor.

The music of the Village People has dancers in a ‘70s trance at Club Shelter, and a lone saxophone player serenades all of Colorado Boulevard.

Officer Paul Carpenter’s radio pipes up, tattling on a drunk who is pestering the people strolling through Old Pasadena.

Carpenter handcuffs the middle-aged Altadena man on the sidewalk in front of La Bamba restaurant, its windows glowing with tiny white lights. A couple at a window table stare but quickly return to their Caribbean cuisine.

“You’re drunk, and you’re going to sleep this off,” Carpenter says.

A while later, the radio blurts out again. Teen-agers are creating a stir at a movie house by trying to enter with outdated tickets.

A security guard chases them away, but Carpenter catches up and talks to one of the youths, a 16-year-old, telling him to get smart.

“Police brutality,” says one of four teen-age girls who stand by watching. The boy mutters an obscenity after his talk with the officer.

Like a harassed celebrity, Old Pasadena is suffering in ways from its own success. The former grunge strip has become one of the Los Angeles area’s hottest night spots. But public drunkenness and youthful unruliness also have come along for the ride.

Those unwelcome elements could frighten off the older, more affluent visitors that the area wants to draw, patrons of restaurants with $25 entrees and art galleries that offer $5,900 sculptures. Put the brakes on new bars, nightclubs, pool halls and restaurants that serve booze, say some restaurant owners and merchants.

But their buildings’ landlords turn surly at the mention of a formal moratorium. Don’t erect barriers in the marketplace, especially in a struggling economy. Empty space could mean unpaid mortgages, which certainly isn’t good for Old Pasadena.

“The greedy landlords. We hear that,” said Danny Mellinkoff, who owns a building on the corner of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard. The property owner adds, “There are certain restaurants that are looking for protection and relief from competition.”

The City Council has told the restaurateurs, bar operators, merchants and building owners to put their heads together and return March 22 with a proposed solution to Old Pasadena’s ills.

“On Friday and Saturday nights it gets pretty rowdy and a bit uncontrolled,” said Vice Mayor Kathryn Nack, whose district encompasses part of Old Pasadena. “There has to be a concerted effort to deal with that problem.”

No one in Old Pasadena wants it to become another Westwood, a hot spot that cooled off years ago. Youth-related crimes--a fatal gang shooting and a rampage by youths who failed to get into a movie premiere--contributed to the decline.

Old Pasadena spent that same period metamorphosing from caterpillar to butterfly.

Colorado Boulevard, the hub of Old Pasadena, used to be home to dingy bars, thrift shops, prostitutes and vagrants, a place that middle-class folk would not dare approach after dark.

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“My dad just didn’t want us coming up here because the area was too bad. There were prostitutes all over the place,” said Jennine Terzo, who inherited the 35er bar on Colorado Boulevard from her late father, who took it over from his father.

But persistent property owners and merchants, aided by redevelopment dollars and tax-motivated city officials, molded Old Pasadena into a smashing success.

Officials estimate that as many as 20,000 people crowd the boulevard and surrounding streets on a busy Friday or Saturday night. And though the recession and other factors have killed some restaurants and businesses, others move in, resulting in overall growth.

Old Pasadena generated about $700,000 in sales taxes for the city last year, about twice as much as it produced five years ago, according to city statistics.

But some people drink themselves into a stupor hopping around Old Pasadena’s 50-plus bars, nightclubs and alcohol-serving restaurants. Others, including minors, bring their own alcohol, drinking in parking lots and alleys.

A recent survey of police calls to the city’s bars in 1992 and 1993 points to the problem.

The area had a lock on the three top trouble spots. The Shelter dance club drew 87 police responses, while Q’s had 72, and the 35er had 56. Police records show their responses most frequently involved public drunkenness, but assaults with a deadly weapon and other serious crimes brought out police on occasion.

The Police Department does not keep annual crime statistics for Old Pasadena. But a spot check comparing police calls in July and December, 1992, with the same months in 1993 indicates the number of calls remains relatively stable.

Disturbances, including fights, public drunkenness and problems with transients, accounted for the majority of calls in each month. A small number of calls were for more serious crimes, including assault with a deadly weapon, robbery and grand theft.

A police spokesman said he does not see a major crime problem in Old Pasadena, but does see a threat in a changing clientele.

“There is great concern in the Police Department as to how we’re going to manage it,” Lt. Wayne Hiltz said.

Police patrols have been beefed up in recent years. There used to be two cops walking foot beats in Old Pasadena on Friday and Saturday nights. Now there are 10. Plans are under way to improve lighting and spruce up streets and alleys, but city officials and business people say more must be done.

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A moratorium on businesses that serve alcohol and a police crackdown on public drunkenness and youthful loiterers are two suggestions that surfaced during recent meetings of the Old Pasadena Business and Professional Assn., whose membership includes about 350 property and business owners.

Disagreements flare among the association’s members, but discussions continue toward a delicate consensus. Association officials say they want to come up with a solution before one is imposed by city officials.

“There is a fear that Big Brother is going to come in and try to control everything,” said Raymond G. Leier, an art gallery owner who is president-elect of the association. “All of us created this together. We have demonstrated in the past that we have the ability to identify a problem and solve it.”