City Should Hang Loose About Hangout : * There’s Room for Compromise Between Teens and Annoyed Dana Point Employees

Town and gown conflicts are a new thing for Dana Point, one of Orange County’s newest municipalities. That’s very clear in the neighborhood of Dana Point City Hall, located in quarters upstairs from a doughnut shop in a shopping center. The shop is popular with teen-agers from Dana Hills High School across the street.

On an average school day, the patio of the doughnut shop is filled with a steady flow of teen-agers who leave the high school campus at lunchtime to play video games or snack at the hangout. And why not? It’s an open campus where some students start school as early as 6:45 a.m. and are out by noontime.

City officials understandably are annoyed about noise, trash and the loitering. However, there ought to be room for compromise. It’s one thing if, as the city manager complains, some city employees have their cars vandalized. Such vandalism ought to be policed by school monitors.

But it’s not so unrealistic that high school students would want to congregate. And the school says it does send over an employee to supervise students.

Strike a balance between the needs of the kids and rights of the offended city employees. The city should not appear overly heavy-handed. These are, after all, residents of the city. Presumably, they are potential future taxpayers, too, who will make decisions about where to live, in part, on their recollections of teen experiences. The youngsters can help by policing themselves.

The operator of an animal hospital in the center says most conduct themselves well, but a few create difficulties. So crack down on the offenders, but don’t overdo it by creating bad feelings unnecessarily. A new city, after all, ought to foster a sense of community. One way to do that is to have youngsters gather peaceably. In a modern suburb, the shopping mall, for better or worse, is likely to double for the old village green.