A ‘Friday Night at the Gym’ Offers Alternative to Streets : Recreation: Center in Oxnard will open from 9 p.m. to midnight in an attempt to give teen-agers a safe gathering place.

Youths eager to shoot baskets or spike volleyballs on Friday nights instead of idling aimlessly in the streets of Oxnard can now look for action under the lights of the Colonia Gym.

Starting tonight, the gym’s doors will open from 9 p.m. to midnight every Friday, hosting volleyball and basketball matches, dances, and workshops on topics such as drugs, gangs and AIDS.

Organizers will also provide music and food--all free of charge.

“We have a lot of kids out on the streets, especially on weekends,” said Oxnard Recreation Coordinator Alex Flores. “The kids complain that they have nowhere to go, nothing to do. This is a good place for kids to gather.”

Once word gets around about “Friday Night at the Gym,” as the program is called, 50 to 60 high-school age youths are expected to attend every week, Flores said.

If Friday nights are successful, organizers plan to extend the Marquita Street gym’s hours to 2 a.m. and open the facility on Saturday nights as well. And similar late-night programs may soon crop up at Santa Clara and Hueneme high schools, Flores said.

Friday Night at the Gym is sponsored by Oxnard’s Recreation and Community Services Department and the Colonia Coalition on Alcohol and Other Drug Issues, a consortium of community activists and agencies. The program at Colonia Gym is expected to cost the city $3,000 a year.

Coalition participants include the Oxnard Police Department, Ventura Alcohol and Drug Programs, El Concilio del Condado de Ventura and the Oxnard Housing Authority.

Oxnard recreation officials, along with the California Beach Volleyball Assn. and Friday Night Live, an anti-drunk driving group, formulated a set of activities to draw high school students to the gym and away from mischief.

“There’s a lot of basketball competition out here,” said 14-year-old Felipe Lopez, who was looking to work on his game tonight. “A lot of people will go.”

Midnight basketball and other late-night crime prevention programs became a symbol of liberal excess for critics of Clinton’s Crime Bill, which the President signed into law earlier this month. But the programs were widely lauded by law enforcement agencies as an effective way to keep bored teen-agers from straying to the wrong side of the law.

Oxnard Recreation Supt. Karen Burnham said Oxnard officials considered late-night crime prevention programs long before the nationwide midnight basketball debate, and did not let it affect their plans.

“We’ve talked about this for awhile,” she said. “Now we’re going to give it a try.”

Ray Reyes, a volleyball coach at Hueneme High, plans to go to the gym and school players on the fine points of the game. Flores, who coaches women’s hoops at Oxnard College, said he’ll do the same for basketball.

By and large, however, volunteers to help oversee late-night recreation events are tough to find. Organizers are still trying to coax firefighters, police and probation officers into spending some nights at the Colonia Gym.

But getting kids to go will be a cinch, Flores said.

“We know the kids in the area, and they’ll take advantage of this,” he said. “I anticipate a lot of female participation as well.”

Playing Foosball at the Colonia Recreation Center Thursday, 18-year-old Arturo Campos said many youths in the Colonia neighborhood used to loiter around the gym after it closed because they had nowhere to go.

“Now they can hang a little longer,” Campos said. “Some kids would stay all night if they could.”