Column: Would hate dispt a drag story hour gay-iendly Laguna Beach?

Contents:

• THE RISE AND FALL OF LAGUNA BEACH, A GAY CALIFORNIA HOTSPOT
• FOOD + FUN AT SOCAL’S ORIGAL GAY BEACH
• COLUMN: WOULD HATE DISPT A DRAG STORY HOUR GAY-IENDLY LAGUNA BEACH?
• COLUMN: WOULD HATE DISPT A DRAG STORY HOUR GAY-IENDLY LAGUNA BEACH?

THE RISE AND FALL OF LAGUNA BEACH, A GAY CALIFORNIA HOTSPOT

Thankfully the world has evolved and although gay bars will always be need, wanted and loved, ’s now not unnscnable for everyone, no matter of who they love, to party, drk and enjoy the night together, unr the same roof.

There was a time when Laguna Beach had s staple gay bars, which were a much need prence durg their reign of the beach cy, and s very possible that the future, more will make their way back to Laguna Beach, but until then, the cy is filled wh optns galore. In 1926, a liquor store and a hardware store opened on the rner of Pearl Street and Pacific Coast Highway, and 1946 beme s current namake The Seahorse, which was actually Laguna Beach’s first gay bar.

For many years, operated as a secret waterg hole for the lol gay muny until was eventually turned back to retail as Laguna Auto Parts…and now ’s back to s origal roots. It was famoly known as Laguna’s preement gay beach for s and is still extremely popular wh the LGBTQ muny. The welg vib created by the gay muny.

FOOD + FUN AT SOCAL’S ORIGAL GAY BEACH

I was 18, I was terrified, and I wanted to go to my first gay club, the Boom Boom Room Laguna Beach, California, a seasi town that, before s rise to promence via an MTV realy seri and Bravo’s gural Real Hoewiv seri, was known as a queer-iendly enclave Orange County.

I knew that, only two years before, a football player at a nearby high school had nearly beaten a gay man to ath on this beach, one of several lol hate crim aimed at gay men. From the late 1990s to the 2010s, through a batn of AIDS-related aths, ’80s-era nservatism, and skyrocketg home pric, the rabow-hued cy lost s gay she. Queer enclav New York Cy, like Park Slope (formerly a lbian hub) or the Wt Village (now more associated wh celebri, fance bros, and others who n afford s risg real tate pric), or Silver Lake Los Angel, aren’t as gay as they were the ’80s and ’90s.

COLUMN: WOULD HATE DISPT A DRAG STORY HOUR GAY-IENDLY LAGUNA BEACH?

San Francis neighborhoods like SoMa or streets like Polk, oime gay lchps a cy synonymo wh sexualy, are more geared toward the flux of tech dollars. Even the Castro, the world’s gay mastay, has seen a cle new LGBTQ rints.

Now an effort by longtime queer rints and one forward-thkg cy official is attemptg to brg Laguna Beach’s gay past back to life. After the cy resigned the area along Ma Beach to turn to a public promena, the gay tablishments—and crowd—moved south to a two-block stretch along PCH between Callpe and Crs streets. Gay-owned and gay-iendly jots like Flr Lys (now lled Ma Street Bar and Cabaret), the Boom Boom Room (a multiered nightclub wh saltwater fishtanks and go-go boys), and the Ltle Shrimp (a piano bar-slash-rtrant wh a lounge sger) opened.

There’s also Wt Beach, a beach along the ast popular wh primarily gay male beachgoers soakg up UV rays and t-llg the ocsnal Adonis passerby. Durg the height of s populary among the LGBTQ crowd, the cy elected one of the untry’s first openly gay elected officials, Bob Gentry, a former associate an of stunts at Universy of California at Irve, who served as mayor and uncilman om 1982 to 1996.

COLUMN: WOULD HATE DISPT A DRAG STORY HOUR GAY-IENDLY LAGUNA BEACH?

He also bore wns to the height of the AIDS/HIV crisis, which h Laguna Beach at a per pa rate parable to San Francis or Manhattan and wiped out much of the gay male populatn—cludg Gentry’s longtime partner, Gary Burdick, 1989. In a move that upset both nservativ and some of the more fearful sectns of the gay muny, Gentry, never one to mce words or hi om the tth, went public wh his partner’s ath. By the time the 1990s h, gay acceptance seemed up natnwi.