As City Weighs Ban, Teens Find A Safe Party

“Less drama, bigger space, no shootings, no violence.”

That’s the way 19-year-old Lovette Short (pictured) described the booze-free and smoke-free dance party that she and 60 other teens enjoyed at Noche Mia on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven Friday night.

As Lovette donned her complimentary neon glow stick necklace and started to gyrate to DJ Rico Blendz’s pump-up-the-volume selections, she joined a crowd of kids who’d been dropped off by parents to dance away in the darkened ballroom. The parents would return to pick them up when the strictly supervised party concluded around midnight.

The party may have offered one response to the concerns raised last week when Hill Alderwoman Jackie James-Evans introduced an ordinance to ban under-21 events at clubs with liquor licenses.

James-Evans gave voice to worries about violence involving unsupervised teens drawn to such events. Meanwhile, some people — including commenters in a passionate thread to a news article about the proposal — asked where teens can find a supervised, trouble-free night out.

Noche Mia owner Angelo Reyes began holding the biweekly teen events two months ago. He said he wants to provide an arena for good kids to dance and to vent for three hours without their parents being around. ​“Neutral territory,” he called it.

Absent such an outlet, he said, people host unsupervised house parties, the liquor flows, and shootings can follow. That happened recently nearby on Grand Avenue.

Reyes has held six parties thus far for 13 to 19-year olds, with no problems.

“At 13 or 14 you shouldn’t be looking toward the downtown club life,” he said. ​“Downtown is a different element. Here is more family-oriented. By the end of the year I want to know everyone who comes up my stairs; who’s having trouble staying in school; who’s the prom queen; who’s joining the military.”

It might be family, but on a particular Friday night, six bouncers were in evidence checking everyone and weeding out prospective partygoers with gang colors, alcohol on their breath, or cigarette smoke.

“Even bubblegum,” said Reyes, can be a telltale sign that covers up the odors of verboten substances.

“I’ve got zero tolerance.”

There were rules on the dance floor too. No piling of groups in corners. No opening of windows to interact with stuff going on in the street below. Bouncers intervened if people started arguing. If you left the ballroom, you couldn’t return.

The teens were clearly having a good time in that awkward, vaguely out of control teenage sort of way. Hadiya Foster, a lithe dancer from Hillhouse High, said that at the downtown clubs it gets too crowded to move around. At Noche Mia she could physically express herself. Reyes’ ballroom space can hold 200; it was perhaps a third full.

Lovette Short – a Hillhouse grad and current Gateway student who also works at the Milford Mall – was at Noche Mia for the second time. She brought ten people to party with her.

She said she also wants to continue to have a downtown nightlife option. She said she disagrees with Alderwoman James-Evans’ proposal.

As long as the younger kids keep to one side of the clubs and the alcohol-drinking post-21 crowd to the other side at downtown clubs with all-ages events, she said, that’s fine with her. She did say she was downtown the night someone was killed at Sinergy.

1,000 Signatures of Protest

Jonnrique Mullings Rivera came bounding up the steps at 10:30 to show Reyes the Independent’s article on the James-Evans proposal. It irked him so much he kept it on his cell phone.

Rivera promotes teen and other parties downtown. Reyes had asked him to promote the Noche Mia events as well.

“I’m going to bring a thousand signatures to that hearing” when the Board of Aldermen consider James-Evans’ proposal, Rivera said.

“Where do people 18 to 21 go? You take our parties away, then what are the schools doing? We’re going to hang around in front of stores? And now you’re trespassing. Laundromats?”

Not laundromats, Reyes parried. Reyes owns the Peoples Laundromat kitty corner from Noche Mia on Grand, among other properties in the area.

Rivera (at right in photo, beside Reyes) promotes events through his ICT (Inner City Teens) organization. He wants to alter stereotypes of teens as wild dangerous creatures, he said. A recent party he did with Ronald Huggins involved discounts on admission if the teens brought coats for the homeless. (That party went smoothly. Later that night teens rampaged downtown; James-Evans witnessed the rampage and decided to introduce her bill.)

Reyes expected to take in $600 Friday night. He said he plans to contribute a third of it to Haiti relief, specifically for Fair Haven resident Gerde Genece, who lost relatives in the earthquake. That $600 covers only the DJ and the bouncers’ salaries, Reyes said. Actual cost is closer to $800 per party. Reyes said he eats the difference. It’s worth it to him.

He hopes to build support in the community for the the smokeless, alcohol-free parties as they continue. He plans to continue hosting them biweekly.

The dances are a ​“lure” to get to know local kids, Reyes said. ​“All these kids are in school, getting good grades.” He said he wants to work with the Board of Ed to find some way perhaps to scan kids as they come in. He’s open even to the idea of rewarding kids with discounts or free admission if, say, they’re excelling at school. He hopes also to work with area not-to-profits to direct kids to them if he finds they need help.

“Angelo wants to have a different environment [here],” Rivera said as more kids arrived, lined up on the steps and submitted to the obligatory search.

“I want to eliminate the violence [downtown],” he added. But he maintained that James-Evans’ proposal goes too far. ​“Instead of judging and criticizing us, [make some suggestions]. You’re stopping the kids from having somewhere to go.”

Reyes suggested a simple solution: clubowners themselves should get together and provide even more security; Reyes’ party was erring on the side of security.

Here now was a smiling Molly Ruth eagerly arriving up the steps with friends. As she was being patted down, she said she’d heard about the party from Facebook. ​“There ain’t nothin’ to do in New Haven,” she said.

Downtown, she added, has too much traffic, too much rowdiness. She put on her glow stick and eagerly went in through double doors to dance.