52 Essential Gay Bars And Nights Around Los Angel | LAist

Contents:

• THE BT GAY BARS AND CLUBS LOS ANGEL
• THE NEW JALIS LATO GAY BAR LNCH GOFUNDME
• AT MEXI’S GAY WBOY NVENTNS, MEN NNECT WH EACH OTHER — AND THEIR UNTRY’S GGED PAST
• LOVG AND PARTYG AT CHI: 'THE BT LATO GAY BAR' MONTEBELLO
• WEHO'S INIC GAY BAR AND NIGHTCLUB, THE ABBEY, IS FOR SALE
• THE BT GAY CISG SPOTS LOS ANGEL
• THE NEW JALIS BAR LNCH GOFUNDME PAGE TO SAVE GAY LATO BAR
• 52 ESSENTIAL GAY BARS AND NIGHTS AROUND LOS ANGEL
• LOS ANGEL GAY RTRANTS

THE BT GAY BARS AND CLUBS LOS ANGEL

Fans wept when Roosterfish, the Wtsi’s olst gay bar, closed 2016.

Micky’s WeHo has long been a staple on Wt Hollywood’s strip of gay nightclubs and bars on Santa Moni Boulevard, known for s open-walled two-story buildg where passersby n see the party ragg om the street.

The venue is the only Latx gay bar LA that explicly ters to a gay and Mexin dience every night, not jt as a theme once a week.

THE NEW JALIS LATO GAY BAR LNCH GOFUNDME

But ’s the perfect space to grab a workday bnch wh a lleague or for -workg ssns -hosted on Tudays wh Gay Asstrology. The origal Downtown gay bar, Jalis is a dive bar that ters to the Latx and Mexin LGBTQ muny. Though Sweetwater isn’t officially known as a lbian bar, the humble tablishment has long been the go-to spot for queer women the lol gayborhood, which featur nearly half a dozen gay bars that le Broadway Long Beach.

One of Long Beach’s few, if not only, three-level gay bars, Executive Sue boasts a karaoke bar, vio gam, pool tabl for rent, and regular drag shows. Dubbed by KCET as Montebello’s bt Lato gay bar, Chi is the sister to Club Cobra, servg as a groundg se for the queer Latx muny the suburbs of East LA. It’s the perfect place for gay men to meet on the Eastsi.

And Yenia Gaan’s Saturday “Taboo Nights” was billed as the bt mil show downtown Los New Jalis Bar weled people jt as they were — homosexual, transgeneros, s papel, drsed as vaqueros and old enough to feel out of place dancg to hoe mic Wt Hollywood.

AT MEXI’S GAY WBOY NVENTNS, MEN NNECT WH EACH OTHER — AND THEIR UNTRY’S GGED PAST

“Everyone there is like your gay uncle. ’s only queer-foced ffee shop; Rage nightclub Wt Hollywood; San Francis’s olst gay bar, The Stud; Ltle Jim’s, the send-olst gay bar cle of gay bars started well before the panmic, part bee creased acceptance of queer people has lsened the need for bars as plac of refuge. Mattson said bars servg workg-class queer people are more likely to be phed out by gentrifitn than those terg to middle-class and whe gay men, he said.

Historilly, transgenr and nonwhe people were unwele many gay bars that served whe men, Mattson said. “The irony is that jt as gay bars have bee more clive, they’re startg to go away, ” he owners of Jalis are stgglg to ensure their closure isn’t Rosa Garcia, 53, started as a bartenr there 1992.

Garcia, outgog and iendly, often threw back a beer or two wh patrons as they exchanged stori and the time, there was only one gay bar downtown: The Sre. So when a few gay men started g , she weled them.

LOVG AND PARTYG AT CHI: 'THE BT LATO GAY BAR' MONTEBELLO

Then-Print Clton unveiled the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prevented service members om beg openly gay, lbian or bisexual whout the threat of beg discharged. (Steven Bernal) “We have to regnize that this is a gay bar, ” Hernanz told his wife.

Every queer person n tell you the first time they went to a gay bar. “Gay bars have survived polil opprsn, the AIDS crisis, prev recsns, so they will survive this panmic, ” he said.

“Gay bars have survived polil opprsn, the AIDS crisis, prev recsns, so they will survive this panmic. The New Jalis bar, one of the longt nng Lato gay bars downtown Los Angel, has turned to GoFundMe to avoid closg durg the COVID-19 panmic.

WEHO'S INIC GAY BAR AND NIGHTCLUB, THE ABBEY, IS FOR SALE

Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea. In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture.

” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub.

THE BT GAY CISG SPOTS LOS ANGEL

He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor. “Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak. In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek.

” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian. ” said Crisman, a 36-year-old gay Korean Amerin rearcher and artist. On this night, he had brought some female high school iends who wanted to experience the gay clubbg scene.

THE NEW JALIS BAR LNCH GOFUNDME PAGE TO SAVE GAY LATO BAR

D’s Cocktail Lounge, a most bar largely off the gay-dar, loted a Montebello mi-mall.

The bar drew a lol Mexin-Amerin clientele, a smatterg of self-intifyg gay men and women, trans women and drag queens, and heterosexuals havg a flg wh someone not their signifint other. Sokol, a TV producer, was enmhed the gay/art/mp/rock band scene of Echo Park and Silver Lake, as was I. Owned by the proprietor of the gay vaquero dance club, Tempo, the Sre had a long, queer past.

It was once a gay bar lled The Keyhole, the ont door surround by a large, woon keyhole shape (that remaed when was the Sre and beyond) day, Sokol lled and told me that he and Licón had bought the bar but didn’t know what to ll . I thought about Montebello, about queerns and reprentatn, and how sire uld be ptured while avoidg the clichés of so much homoerotic imagery.

52 ESSENTIAL GAY BARS AND NIGHTS AROUND LOS ANGEL

I wanted imag for Chi that were aimed at a predomantly gay Lato male dience, athetilly rmed by neighborhoods like Montebello, largely workg and middle class.

In the neighborhoods, mascule male erotic sire (both homo and heterosexual) is generally embodied wh an array of archetyp, cludg the homeboy/gangster, the jock and the chal, a term mon Mexi for a mascule young man who might have sex wh other men, but who don’t bear mon queer tras or terts. Historilly (and still), male homosocial sexual enunters vertly take place the recs of public parks, like Whtier Narrows and Elysian Park. I suted and found men workg fast food rtrants and to body shops, gay and straight bars, cisg parks and on the street.

In France, a Paris rint, an olr gay man origally om East Los Angel, me to the openg.

LOS ANGEL GAY RTRANTS

Granted, Chi is a mostly sized space, but a loyal clientele tablished quickly, one that was predomantly Lato, gay and male. It soon beme a gay, brown “Cheers”-type bar, wh a workg class and distctly homie athetic.