ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Music and Menace Don’t Mix

Young people often complain, sometimes validly, that they do not have enough places to go in Orange County. In that sense, the closing of a punk rock venue in Fullerton is cause for regret because it will mean one less place for the young to gather. However, there can be no quarreling with the notion that safety must come first.

Stabbings at the Ice House in December and February led to a Planning Commission hearing last week at which officials revoked the club’s entertainment permit. Promoter Eric M. Addeo says his company staged 52 concerts at the club with little trouble until the stabbings. But officials’ concerns about the violence were legitimate, and they had to act.

For years the punk rock scene has existed and even flourished in Huntington Beach, Fullerton and Costa Mesa. In some ways, the controversy over the 578-person-capacity Ice House illustrates currents beneath the stereotypical image of Orange County as a place of suburban affluence and order. The area somehow has nurtured the rebellious energy of this music and at the same time has lived uneasily with it. But while it might not be surprising that a county with a libertarian streak has spawned a musical scene that celebrates defiance of authority, there can be no ideological argument against the need for public safety.

Concert promoters had promised to increase security at the Ice House and work with police to prevent violence, but negotiations did not produce a compromise satisfactory to Fullerton Police Chief Patrick E. McKinley. Commissioners took their action after the chief told them he remained worried that eventually somebody would be killed.

Ironically, many observers of the punk scene say that now is actually a safer time than when the style first appeared in the early 1980s. Now the threat seems to come from small groups of white-power extremists--a classic example of the few spoiling it for the many. Of course, disruption by a small group can happen at any public venue, not only at the Ice House but at a mainstream ice skating rink frequented by clean-cut kids. Clearly one of Orange County’s few punk venues has been done in by a handful who were out to mix mayhem with their music.

A little spirit of rebellion is not all bad in a county where freedom in all its forms traditionally has been seen almost as a way of life. However, incidents of violence smother exercise of that spirit. The choice for Orange County clubs may be between having some extra security or having silence.