Younger Set Gives Club Dimension

Despite the number of 18- to 20-year-olds dying to enter the nightclub scene and willing to pay just about any cover charge to do so, few clubs are willing to go after this audience.

One reason is pure bottom line: sodas generate less profit than alcoholic drinks. Another reason is that many older patrons don’t particularly like hanging with someone fresh out of high school.

But there are advantages: An otherwise dismal evening can turn explosive when the doors are opened to an 18-and-over set with the energy to party all night. That theory is proved Thursday nights at Club Dimensions in Anaheim.

Hosted by promoters Positive Image, the club is, for better or worse, unlike anything in the county. After paying the $6 cover charge and flashing an ID (which determines whether they get one of the fluorescent bracelets marking those of legal drinking age), patrons head into one of two rooms according to whichever booming beat pulls them.

In the larger one, deejays Juan Smooth, Jose Rhythm and Carlos entertain a packed floor with deep house, techno and an occasional KROQ ditty--usually of the Soft Cell variety. The hypnotic clamor keeps the predominantly Latino crowd in a perpetual bouncing state, hips swaying, legs kicking and arms moving, reminiscent of quebradita . It beats anything Jane Fonda or Cindy Crawford can come up with for a cardiovascular workout.

The banquet room-like chairs and tables (covered with tablecloths) and the faux foliage and flowers in box planters lining the walls give the scene an effect of a family party crashed by trendy teens. But wallflowers only need look at the frenzy on the dance floor and stage (which is taken over by video vixens-in-training), the colored strobes and the 8- millimeter art films lighting the walls to get in the mood.

Dollar drink specials (last week it was bourbon and cola) change hands across the long marble-top bar, which stretches between both rooms. The bar stays stocked throughout the night with young dudes checking out the steady parade of patrons, hoping to make eye contact with some vision in black--the color of choice among the women with big hair.

A passageway leads to a smaller room pumping retro, old school and hip-hop courtesy of deejays Ice Man and Tony Wild. In this room, the bodies groove closer together and more in sync on the limited dance floor. The interior wins the prize for looking like a club in a bad TV sitcom, with geometrical mirrors covering the walls and glass blocks piled carefully on shelves.

Flyers boast an upstairs VIP lounge filled with pool tables, but it remained locked last week. Tip: There are restrooms up there outside the room that apparently few patrons know about. There are another pair of restrooms downstairs in the smaller dance room.

The Thursday-eve gig averages about 500 patrons weekly, according to promoters, 300 shy of maximum capacity.

* CLUB DIMENSIONS * At Prestigio Towers, 1490 S. Anaheim Blvd., Anaheim. * (714) 758-7734 or (213) 726-3825. * Thursdays only, 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. Open to ages 18 and over. * Cover: $6.