"There are years more before I can go anyplace fun," said San Francisco High School Senior Claudia French as she marked her 17th birthday. For many a U.S. teenager, the task of finding nighttime amusement that will meet with the approval of parents and the law is a similarly doleful problem. The nightspots that serve food and nonalcoholic drinks usually lack the entertainment or dance floor that teen-agers look for. Those that have such features usually serve liquor, which is forbidden to the under-21 crowd by law in 47 states* and by the stern disapproval of many parents in all 50 states. What is more, few nightspots that specialize in adult customers are anxious to cater to the teen-ager's meager budget.
Finally, someone is doing something about the teenagers' neglected nighttime life. Exclusively teen-age nightclubs are springing up slowly across the U.S.. and more and more nightspots that once concentrated on adults are changing their practice to attract the growing teen-age population. The common denominator of the exclusively teen-age clubs is that no one out of his early 20s is admitted. In most such clubs there is live entertainment, a hot-dog and hamburger bar, and no drink more alcoholic than Coca-Cola (some serve alcohol-less "beer''). And in all of them—exclusively teen or teen-oriented—the oldsters who thought to give the youngsters a break are reaping a steady profit, often as much as $5,000 a week.
Suspicious Bulges. Los Angeles' Peppermint Stick Nightclub, founded five months ago, claims to be the first "exclusive." "The Stick," as it is known to the faithful, is owned and chaperoned by Dr.
and Mrs. David Rosen, offers the kind of food (mostly fried, nothing green), music (all jive, nothing square) and atmosphere (a roomful of peers) that the teen-ager likes. The success of the Stick, which is jammed six nights a week with undulating youngsters, has led to the creation of two other teen-age nightclubs in the Los Angeles area: the Cinnamon Cinder (a "supper club" where supper means pizza and "no Levi's or Capris" are permitted) and Pandora's Box, a slightly more sophisticated version of the plain old teen-age club. Pandora's has the distinction of having ejected Hollywood Starlet Tuesday Weld, who claimed to be 18, was adjudged overage.
Kansas City's Soc-Hop, owned and operated by a policeman and his brother-inlaw, requires an admission card that can be yanked for unruly conduct, is guarded by husky doormen who watch for "suspicious bulges"' that might be liquor bottles.
The Surf, a onetime adult nightclub just outside Boston, decided to pitch for the Coke-swigging crowd, now attracts upward of 1,000 teenagers, who pay about $1 a head to gyrate to the emoting of Fabian, Frankie Avalon or Bobby Darin. In Cape Coral, Fla., a $50,000 clubhouse is being readied for the autumn opening of the nation's first teen-age key club. Only key-carrying teen-agers (19 is the absolute age limit) will be admitted, and violators of the club's code—no smoking, no drinking, lots of pingpong and billiards—will have to hand over their keys.