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It will soon look like a dance club Photo by Jim Craven Von Smith, production manager for Oregon Stage Lighting, works at the new home of Vibes in the former Ernst building in the South Gateway Center. The under-21 dance club opens Friday. New Vibes Where : Old Ernst building, South Gateway shopping center When : Fridays and Saturdays from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Who : Anyone under age 21 Activities : Dancing, pool, arcade games, basketball Cost : $5 per person Vibes will reopen -- larger By DAVID PRESZLER The beat is back. Four weeks after closing its doors just west of Medford, Vibes is ready to rock in a bigger building. The under-21 dance club opens Friday night in the old Ernst Home Center building in the South Gateway shopping center. The building has been vacant since Ernst closed in 1996. "We needed a bigger spot," says Tom Cole, who opened Vibes at Sweet Acres Country Barn in May with partner Mike Keating. "We've been looking around for a larger facility." They found a 56,000-square-foot building that they say is too big; Vibes will occupy only about half the space; they'll close off the rest and supervise it to keep kids out. The partners say they are still looking for that perfect spot but have a short-term lease with LMNIC Inc. of Seattle, which owns the property. "This is just a temporary home until they find a tenant," Keating says. In the meantime, Vibes plans to make the most of the roomy new digs -- adding three to four pool tables, video games and a full-length basketball court. The dance floor will be significantly larger, growing from about 4,200 square feet at Sweet Acres to 7,000 at the old Ernst. Before closing Oct. 17, Vibes had been drawing an average of 300 young people a night and Cole says some were starting to complain that the old site was too crowded. The cross-town move happened sooner than expected because Cole and Keating say it appeared Sweet Acres would be sold. They had considered buying the building if it became available when they first opened Vibes, but after a few months there, decided they wanted more space. "It wasn't the perfect location," Cole says. Carolyn Branham, who owns Sweet Acres, couldn't be reached Tuesday. The new location may ease concerns raised by some parents about safety at Vibes. There were complaints of fights -- one of which ended with an estimated $1,600 worth of damage to a car. The car's owner, a Central Point woman, says her son and three of his friends got into a fight with a large group of other boys. The passenger window in the car was broken and she's had the license plates changed because members of the large group threatened to chase her son down. One boy was struck in the shoulder, another in the face. "That has been the most serious incident we've had," Keating says, noting that there were very few serious problems. Jackson County sheriff's deputies, who patrolled the old location because it was outside Medford city limits, agree. "I didn't feel that it was outlandish," says sheriff's Capt. Ed Mayer. From the May opening to Oct. 8 -- a week before it closed -- deputies were called to Vibes 14 times and had 26 cases in the area, not all of which could be traced to the club. Mayer says most calls were for minor disorderly conduct complaints and such. Keating and Cole say some of the problems are inevitable and point out that they are the same difficulties faced by high schools and at other places teens gather. "What other place can you have 400 teenagers and never have a problem?" Cole asks. The two expect fewer problems at the new site -- in part because Medford police can provide more support and have much quicker response times. Because of a manpower shortage and limited budget, an average of only three to five sheriff's deputies are patrolling the whole county on Friday and Saturday nights. In Medford, 10-12 officers are generally on patrol. Keating says Vibes' policy is to call law enforcement when potentially serious problems arise. But at the old location, it would usually take sheriff's deputies at least 15 minutes to get there -- a fact that wasn't lost on troublemakers. "The kids knew that they could be belligerent for awhile," he says. Maria Swann, one of Medford's community service officers, will be working inside Vibes on Friday night and other officers will patrol the area. Keating says that will make for a stronger presence that the kids will also pick up on. "Now they know that if they don't leave, we will have the police right there," he says. Vibes also has its own security -- both inside the club and in the parking lot. Three to five people will patrol the parking lots to prevent loitering. Police also have permission from neighboring businesses to cite teens loitering in nearby parking lots for trespassing. "They are providing a great deal of their security and we are trying to enhance that," says Lt. Mike Moran, with whom Keating and Cole met to discuss security issues. "Vibes has a lot of good security measures in place." Employees check ID at the door to make sure no one over 21 gets inside and also keep visibly intoxicated teens from coming in. Keating says they have turned away three to four kids a night for each of those reasons. Moran says police are committed to making sure Vibes is safe. "We want to make it clear from the beginning that we aren't going to tolerate behaviors that are outside having good, clean fun,'' he says. "There's certainly the need for a lot of fun, healthy activities." And Keating and Cole say that's what has happened the majority of the time and that's what they'll make sure continues. "The big thing," Cole says, "is how do you make doing something positive cool without turning them off." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA