Robert Todd has teamed up with the police department to get kids hooked on bowling this summer in an effort to keep them out of trouble 7 and to bolster his business.

Todd, a co-owner of the Ocean Lanes Family Entertainment bowling alley, has given away about 13,000 cards from Lompoc to the Santa Ynez Valley that gives children a free game of bowling every day in June, July and August.

He worked with the police department/s DARE anti-drug program, the Lompoc Unified School District and other agencies that can reach kids, to get the cards to children.

Ocean Lanes Cosmic Bowling for children on the weekends is already popular, but Todd wants to bring them in on weekdays.

&#8220I/m trying to expand this market,C Todd said. &#8220This is a marketing tool. I kind of hope kids will come in and bowl multiple games.C

It/s also a good way to keep children busy, get their parents hooked on bowling and keep the lanes filled with bowlers during the slow summer months when the most popular leagues end, he added.

Todd said he views the promotion as a way to make people aware that Ocean Lanes exists. He said he surveyed people around town and about two-thirds of the 100 respondents he polled did not know there was a bowling alley in town.

&#8220Hopefully (the free bowling) increases the business and public awareness,C Todd said.

Ocean Lanes officials view the free game of bowling a day as one of many promotions that could boost business. Todd is also working on something for college students next year that would give them a game free with the purchase of another game, and he is pushing the bowling centers/ NASCAR auto racing bowling league in which bowlers get a crew shirt and a bowling bag with the number and colors of a famous race car driver.

The idea of offering free games of bowling to drum up business has been tried by other bowling alleys in Southern and Northern California and elsewhere. Todd studied how it worked in Glendale and learned that it attracted 200 to 400 children a day. And bowlers typically play several games, he said.

&#8220It will be cool because some kids don/t have a chance to bowl because of how much it costs,C said Humberto Arias, 9, a third-grader at Arthur Hapgood Elementary School.

Arias said he likes bowling because it is relaxing and it does not take long to get good at.

&#8220Bowling is the largest individual participation sport in the United States,C Todd said. &#8220We are trying to get the kids to have fun doing it.

&#8220I think in some cases the kids will come in frequently.C

Mark Abramson can be reached at 737-1057 or mabramson@lompocrecord.com.

June 13, 2006