Liquid Refreshment

At least 500 teens have been streaming weekly into Liquid, an urban-beat club run out of a Huntington Beach rec center that’s slaking an obvious thirst among high schoolers who’ve been left high and dry on Saturday nights.

Promoters James Taylor and Adam Anastasi, both in their 20s, launched the gig in June to provide an alcohol-free party zone for kids who can’t (legally) get past doormen at other clubs until they turn 18.

A high-school ID will get you into Liquid. And while liquor doesn’t flow and smoking’s not allowed inside, the evening doesn’t feel remotely like a chaperoned prom or Santa Ana’s enduring Flip Side Christian Dance Club.

Indeed, with strobes streaking in sync with house, techno, trip-hop and disco, the place is more akin to Fullerton’s secular Global Village, one of Orange County’s only other underage oases.

There’s no message offered here, and the only visual that smacks of academia is an ornamental fixture hovering above the larger of two dance floors that looks like one of those spinning solar-system models from fourth grade.

Actually, one activity common on every high-school campus--and which Mom may not condone--has found full expression here. But nobody’s outlawed French kissing yet, and moms may be comforted to know that a quiet patio where a lot of it goes on is well-lit.

Liquid’s light first shone at the Huntington Harbor Yacht Club but migrated after Huntington Beach city officials offered to co-sponsor the event at the Edison Community Center. The city had failed to attract youths to its after-hours, adult-supervised programs (imagine that), said Community Services director Ron Hagan.

But Taylor and Anastasi “had the operating expertise and were attracting kids,” Hagan said.

The pair spend Saturday afternoons covering every inch of the spacious center’s walls with heavy black plastic stuff to try to eradicate any hint of municipal banality. Lasers shooting through the darkness, loudspeakers and lots of 2-foot-high dance platforms trimmed with blinking white lights help.

Ignore the linoleum in the big room, which gets packed by 10:30 p.m. with youths in T-shirts and slip dresses who are more casually ragged than most clubbers around. The deejay sticks to danceable hip-hop, old school and disco.

One recent night, the crowd made way for brave souls to perform solo in the center of a circle. Break-dancing, handstands, anything qualified as choreography until the bobbing bodies reunited into a single, amorphous blob.

Progressive hard-edge sounds prevailed in room two, which is next to a cozy, sunken lounge where Liquid Television was being taped. The publicity-minded Taylor and Anastasi air 30 minutes’ worth of each week’s activities over Paragon-leased cable on Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. and Thursdays at 8 p.m., said aspiring producer Anastasi, who also works with Christian youth groups.

He and Taylor train their minicam on all the guys and dolls and interview local surf, skate and snowboarding notables. The shooting sessions have become part of the club’s entertainment, perhaps substituting for the absence of edibles. Nobody seems to mind, though. Coke, 7-Up and bottled water are $1, and Snapple is $2. And the teens (most 16 to 18) seem happy just to have a cool place to go every weekend.

BE THERE

Liquid, Edison Community Center and Park, 21377 Magnolia Ave., Huntington Beach. 8:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Saturday. Cover: $7. (714) 967-7962.