All ages
I don’t know much about the ABC, and I don’t like speaking out of ignorance, but it’s pretty clear that selling more beer than garlic fries is a ridiculous reason to fine a business. As a government organization, their agenda sounds pretty self-serving. Conversations I’ve had with friends in the booze industry reaffirm this suspicion.
I didn’t get invited to many parties in high school, and even if I had, I would have had a lousy time. Like many adolescents, I simply didn’t fit in with my kids I went to school with. Like substantially fewer, I was lucky enough to grow up in a city that had (at the time) a large, active local music scene, and that’s where I found the sense of belonging that eluded me elsewhere. At all-ages clubs like the Great American Music Hall and the Bottom of the Hill, I met like-minded kids from all over the Bay Area and formed friendships that have lasted for years. I learned the joy of discovering new music, and that joy in turn taught me the value of seeking out new shit as much as possible. My high school punk band played some of these clubs, and as awful as we were, some of my happiest memories of being a teenager are those shows.
If the ABC has their puritanical-yet-pointless way and these clubs either go 21+ or go under, I don’t doubt that the kids will find something else to do with their time. They tend to be pretty resourceful as a group. But it’d be a shame anyway, if for no other reason that I will be even more puzzled by what the hell it is teenagers today do with their time.
