Parent taking complaints about teen club to Sylva board
Local parent Brian Bartel will be asking Sylva leaders during their regular meeting Thursday morning, Dec. 17, to shut down a club aimed at teens in the area.
Bartel will address town board members during their third-Thursday meeting at 9:15 a.m. at Town Hall and says he will ask them to look into Club Offspring, which is located next to the Flowers bread store in the former REACH Thrift Shop location. Bartel said his teens came home from school with a flyer promoting the club that worried him.
“It said ‘come as wasted as you want, dressed how you want,’ ” he said.
More than 100 residents have signed a petition requesting that the club be shut down. Bartel said he would present those signatures to the board Thursday.
Club Offspring co-owner Nathan Lang said the club was started as a way to minister to at-risk youth in the area by him and his son Russell. Though the flyers promoting the club were “on edge,” he said that no alcohol, drugs or fighting are allowed in the facilities.
“With so much media clamoring for our teens’ attention, one must be a little on the edge to get noticed,” he said. “You may notice that we didn’t say to come to Club Offspring to get as ‘wasted as you want,’ or to get as ‘high’ as you want, or to dress/undress as you want. These at-risk teens are already doing these things. And we welcome them in to our no alcohol, no drugs environment to have fun with their friends regardless of how messed up they are. They are getting messed up without us already. We are there for them when they are ready to make a positive step in their lives and have fun without the illegal element.”
Recent media reports have stated that Russell Lang is currently in jail for statutory rape. Nathan Lang said those reports have been blown out of proportion, stating that Russell is serving time as part of a plea agreement.
“He was not convicted of a crime; he chose to enter a plea bargain,” Lang said. “The case cannot be tried again but one of the main facts of the case was that he was 19 and his girlfriend was 15. They had been going together for two years. It seems ridiculous that we are filing criminal cases against two teenagers who are boyfriend and girlfriend.”
