Dancers Swing Into Action to Save Club

Warning to Anaheim Planning Commission: Impassioned Lindy hoppers and tango dancers are on their way.

They will converge--or, at least, their e-mails will--on Monday when the commission takes up the question of tearing down a dance club to put up a couple of fast-food restaurants on a North Tustin Avenue site.

I ask you, what does Orange County need more--another El Pollo Loco and Starbucks or a dance club that lets people relive an era where there was no such thing as fast food?

The imperiled club is Memories, built as a house on a dirt road 70 years ago that then became a restaurant that catered to Boeing workers, and then a strip club and then a restaurant again, and now the dance club that attracts people from all over.

In short, it’s got a history and some character.

Let’s tear it down!

The owners want to sell but couldn’t get a buyer unless the property showed it could generate more revenue, which Memories hasn’t done.

Enter El Pollo Loco and Starbucks.

Exit Memories.

Maybe.

“I do have a sense of impending doom, but I’m also hopeful,� says John Crist, who manages Memories and leases the building from its owners. The only ray of hope is that some Memories regulars are expected to present the commission on Monday with dozens of messages from patrons, all imploring that their special corner of the world be left intact.

I got one of the e-mails, from Nora Immoor, a 29-year-old civil engineer in San Francisco. She says she comes to Orange County at least once a month to dance at Memories.

“Dancers all across the nation,� she writes, “have heard of the magic this place has, the homelike atmosphere, camaraderie, not to mention the best dance floor in the country. Memories has established itself as the West Coast meeting place for dancers.�

Fancy-Stepping back in Time

Mo Jones is a Westminster dance instructor and probably will present the messages to the commission. He says he’s gotten more than 100 from around the country.

He was one of about 150 at the club Friday night losing himself both in the pleasures of dance and the sanctuary of a cultural hideaway.

“You know how you grow up in a place and you don’t want to leave?� Jones says. “When you walk in, it doesn’t feel like a club. It feels like you’re walking into your own residence.�

Part of the appeal, of course, is the music. You may be stuck in a 21st century world by day, but at night you can come dance into the wee hours to Clarence “Frogman� Henry and Benny Goodman.

“You have the feeling at Memories that you’re transported back in time and that you want to be there,� Jones says.

One of the regulars is Marcelo Teson, a 20-year-old USC sophomore. “You can go dancing anywhere, and God knows there are places much closer for me to go than Anaheim,� he says. “But the people are so nice, the place is so magical.�

Sure, Teson says, Memories could reopen elsewhere. “They could move, but it’s a historic building. It’s just beautiful old California adobe architecture and is just an amazing, amazing place.�

Step inside the place and you feel and see it. Age, ethnic and class barriers come crashing down inside the walls. Crist points to the bar next to the dance floor and, with a shrug, makes the point that no one is drinking.

That’s one reason the place doesn’t make a lot of money every night. When you’re dancing with this kind of precision, a little too much bourbon can throw you off.

Modest liquor sales aren’t the ticket in a bottom-line world. Crist knows it, yet part of him doesn’t care. He says he still gets a buzz watching teenagers “who a year ago didn’t know their left foot from their right now out there doing flips and special stuff and their parents and grandparents are watching.�

The “swing� craze that hit about three years ago still is going strong, Crist says. “It’s multi-generational,� he says. “Everybody dances with everybody. People know it’s a place to go that’s not a pick-up joint. Everybody here knows how to dance, and they know everybody comes to dance.�

And if the wrecking ball comes?

“It would move and he [Crist] would try to re-create it,� Teson says. “But it wouldn’t be the same. Where are you going to find another building like that?�

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821; by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; or by e-mail at [email protected].