The fascatg history of Oakland’s Whe Horse, the Bay Area’s olst gay bar

Contents:

• THE BEST OAKLAND GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS OAKLAND
• THE FASCATG HISTORY OF OAKLAND’S WHE HORSE, THE BAY AREA’S OLST GAY BAR
• GAY & NIGHTLIFE DESTINATION

THE BEST OAKLAND GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS OAKLAND

This is also the first time Huynh will own a bar, but a ago he was a bartenr at some of the most proment gay bars San Francis, mostly the Castro district. When he took stock thgs, Huynh said, “I realized that the bt tim my life were the Castro, beg myself, beg gay and ee. “I would love to make a quote unquote Castro of Oakland, ” he said, “where people flow om bar to bar all night, a real gay scene right here Oakland.

Oakland, is the olst ntuoly operatg gay bar the Uned Tiffany/Special to SFGATE.

It’s faiar and unpretent the way only old bars n be — fact, open sce 1933, claims to be the olst ntuoly operatg gay bar the untry.

THE FASCATG HISTORY OF OAKLAND’S WHE HORSE, THE BAY AREA’S OLST GAY BAR

“Back then, they would pass you off to jail and your name would be published the paper and you would be fired [if you were ught a gay bar], ” said now-owner Chuck Davis. “They uld also close the gay bar jt for physil touchg, and thgs like that would put you right out of bs. Many Telegraph Avenue neighbors had no ia the Whe Horse was even a gay bar.

Nobody knew was a gay bar. In fact, a lot of the gay clientele would go to the Che rtrant late, go through the door between the two and end up the bar, and they uld kd of e and go gno.

GAY & NIGHTLIFE DESTINATION

Police raids of gay and lbian bars were mon the '50s and '60s, but the Whe Horse was lucky — was never raid. When Ruth and Joe Johansen, the straight uple that owned the Whe Horse at the time, refed to distribute Berkeley-based radil newspaper Gay Sunshe at the bar, members of the Gay Liberatn Front anized a boytt of the bar.

For weeks, they marched outsi the bar wh “Gay Power” signs, and even held a s-.