Wild Things : Elusive and Illegal, ‘Underground’ Parties Make a Business of Catering to Underage. ‘You Can Do What You Want,’ Says a Patron

It’s midnight on Friday. Do you know where your teen-agers are?

If they are like many other Westside high school students, they could be gearing up for a night of madness in Los Angeles’ thriving underground party scene. When many parents are fast asleep, under-18 party-goers pack into old-dance halls and warehouses in industrial areas of Hollywood, Mid-Wilshire and downtown. From midnight until sunrise, the revelers get all the beer and cheap wine that anyone can handle for just $20.

“For teen-agers, ‘undergrounders’ are the thing to do on the weekends,” said Carrie Berle, 18, a senior at Westlake School in Bel-Air. “It’s a big thing to say ‘I know about this undergrounder and it’s exclusive.’ If you go, you know you’ll find the most popular people in your school. It’s where they hang out.”

These aren’t the parties of Sandra Dee, with the host calling friends or sending out invitations. They are a business orchestrated by entrepreneurs who see the opportunity to make money from teen-agers looking to have a good time.

Because the parties are illegal, getting to them is something of a treasure hunt. Parties are advertised by word of mouth and flyers that are handed out at high schools. The flyers--some with headlines such as “The Weekend of Romantic Chaos” or “Armageddon Has Begun”--give party-goers an address of a gas station or a deserted corner, where they pay an admission fee in exchange for a map to the party. There are also telephone “hot lines” that provide the same information.

On one recent Saturday night, hundreds of party-goers flocked to the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, where they had hoped to buy their maps.

It was a mixed crowd. There were blacks, Anglos, Latinos and Asians. Preppies in Izod sweaters mingled with would-be hippies in psychedelic overalls and roughnecks in black, studded jackets.

The police broke the crowd up before midnight, scaring off the map sellers. Still, many in the crowd huddled around a nearby public phone well after 2 a.m., waiting for the hot line to announce a new map location. Promoters of the parties, many of them men in their mid-20s who do it for their living, say they use the hot line system to help ensure the secrecy of the underground scene. Rarely are map locations announced over the hot lines until the night of a party. Students say the parties are judged by the number of beer kegs or the amount of alcohol served. More alcohol often means a larger turnout. The availability of marijuana and Ecstasy, a “designer drug” popular during the mid-1980s, also draws students.

“The wilder, the better,” commented one Santa Monica High School student, who asked not to be named, at a recent party. “You can do what you want. No parents, no ID. You come here to break loose with your friends.”

Typically, 300 to 400 people show up. Underground lore has it that a New Year’s Eve bash drew 1,500 people to an airplane hangar in Burbank. Once at the party, they thrash to rock ‘n’ roll so loud that it vibrates the soles of their shoes. At a recent party, some revelers painted fluorescent green and purple peace signs on their bodies. Smoke machines and strobe lights transformed the warehouse into a yellow and red psychedelic romp.

Not everyone is a fan of the parties. For years, frustrated parents have criticized them for serving alcohol to minors and for creating unsafe conditions. Some parents have made a personal crusade of fighting the underground scene.

“This is more than a moral issue,” said Trisha Roth, a Beverly Hills pediatrician and an outspoken critic of businesses that serve alcohol to minors. “This is a health and safety issue for our children, a matter of life and death. The more alcohol that is available to them, the more alcohol-related problems we are going to see.”

Alcohol-related traffic accidents have been the leading cause of death among 15- to 19-year-olds since the early 1970s, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. As many as 35,000 teen-agers nationwide have died in such circumstances in the past decade alone, officials estimate.

Promoters of the underground parties say they are providing a service that is increasingly in demand, as well as an atmosphere that party-goers can’t find elsewhere. “These parties are adventurous,” said Philip Blaine, a promoter in Los Angeles. “Every week, people can experience a whole new environment. They can hear the latest (music) cuts. They can let themselves go and be free to meet new people.”

Blaine said his “King Fish” parties, which often last until 7 a.m., are aimed at the 21-and-over crowd, but he said it is impossible to keep underage people out.

The promoter admitted that he has been at parties where other promoters had broken into the premises. Blaine said he often plans parties at legitimate clubs. Other times, the promoter said, he rents warehouses that lack the right permits at a cost of $300 to $5,000 per party.

“We find a guy who wants to make some money, make a deal with him and say, ‘Here’s $500,’ ” he said.

Some parents complain that legal red tape prevents them from countering with so-called sober parties.

Terry Weissman recently looked into what types of permits she would need for her son, a Beverly Hills High student, to throw an alcohol-free party in a Hollywood warehouse for about 200 Westside students. She discovered the process would take a minimum of four months and $3,000, the time and cost required to get a conditional-use permit from the city’s Zoning Department to make the party legal. The permit allows the rezoning of commercial properties for social or entertainment purposes.

Weissman also discovered that she would need to get a one-night teen-age dance permit, a certificate of occupancy and a fire-assemblage permit, all from different city departments. None of the permits are required for private parties held in homes.

“It’s frustrating when you see a legitimate option being shut off and the illegal options going untouched,” she said. “These kids wanted to show people that they could have a good time without alcohol or drugs, but the bureaucracy made it impossible.”

Los Angeles police and fire officials say they have tried unsuccessfully for at least five years to shut the clubs down for a host of fire, health, and building and safety violations. Yet for every one that has been closed, another has inevitably taken its place.

“They’re fire pits,” said Sgt. John Fletcher, an LAPD vice enforcement coordinator’s aide. “Imagine having 200 people in a building with one exit. Understand, we’re not against kids having a good time. We are against having to bury kids who may one day be caught in a fire in one of these places.”

Part of the problem in trying to shut down the clubs is that they are hard to locate. Organizers keep the parties on the move. They are held at facilities that are either rented for a night or broken into, police say, and move from week to week.

The police say that the danger posed by the clubs was made all the more apparent when a fire swept through the illegal Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx, N.Y., last March, killing 87. Fire officials on the scene said that many of the deaths were the result of patrons’ being trapped inside the club; the only means of escape was through a cramped front entrance.

The incident prompted Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley last fall to create a task force to identify legitimate and underground clubs in Los Angeles that pose potential fire hazards. The panel is made up of police and fire officials, as well as members of the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control.

Still, the new awareness has done little to slow the underground scene and the enthusiasm that many high school students show for it.

“There are only so many movies you can go to on a Friday night,” said one Beverly Hills High School student, who asked not to be named. “If adults get to go to clubs, then why shouldn’t we be able to? After all, no one’s getting hurt.”