Will the last gay bar Laguna Beach please turn out the lights? - Los Angel Tim

Contents:

• REMEMBERG A LEGACY OF GAY BARS
• LAGUNA ART MM LOOKS BACK ON TOWN’S GAY BAR SCENE
• GAY LAGUNA TRI TO EMERGE
• LAGUNA’S LAST GAY BAR JEOPARDY
• WILL THE LAST GAY BAR LAGUNA BEACH PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?
• NO MORE CHEERS AS LTLE SHRIMP FAC LAST CALL : LANDMARK: MONDAY’S CLOSG OF LAGUNA BEACH’S LONGTIME GAY HANGOUT SADNS S CTOMERS.
•  CALIFORNIA LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS
• FOOD + FUN AT SOCAL’S ORIGAL GAY BEACH
• THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

REMEMBERG A LEGACY OF GAY BARS

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.

For s, Laguna Beach had a large gay bar on Ma Beach and later the Boom Boom Room at the Coast Inn.

LAGUNA ART MM LOOKS BACK ON TOWN’S GAY BAR SCENE

Luckily a gay man owns our much smaller and only remag gay bar, the Bounce, and has ma recent chang wh more improvements g. Ma Beach was home to the big “gay” bar, Dant, which would orr 500 s of Budweiser alone for holiday weekends. Legend has that Michael Michaels, the wonrful owner of the Ltle Shrimp, asked Carl Smh and his wife to dner and told them they should turn the South Seas bar at the Coast Inn to a gay bar bee unlike the Shrimp, was big enough to acmodate the gays.

He had been a prs agent for Judy Garland and cleverly spread the word that the South Seas was turng gay on a summer, holiday weekend. John sold to two gay men and over the years people me om around the world to go to Wt Street Beach and the Boom Boom Room. So for s, even when Laguna had half the populatn has now, thoands om the lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr muny traveled to Laguna and spent lns and got a tan at the beach and a beer at our statn gay bar and stayed overnight at hotels all over town.

(Don Kelsen / Los Angel Tim) The beats of the old Boom Boom Room once dropped right to the hearts of the gay muny Laguna who n remember the old ways will look to relive their glory days through an event Saturday eveng at Laguna Art Mm. “The mm has been here for over 100 years now, and ’s always kd of been a place that the gay muny n e to, ” Daniel Stachowski, public programs ordator for the mm, said. “In the 1980s, we had a fundraiser for the AIDS crisis, and we’re ntug that legacy of beg supportive for the LGBTQ+ muny by havg the pri events here Laguna, which was for the longt time a safe haven for the gay muny to e and be who they are.

GAY LAGUNA TRI TO EMERGE

For Cooley, and perhaps the larger gay muny, ’s ls about the past and more about embracg a new future. But he also knows that ’s not about quanty but qualy: “Make Laguna gay aga is not our mantra. After the recent ath of owner Jam Nelson, Laguna Beach’s last gay bar, Ma Street Bar & Cabaret (aka The Anchor Le Bar & Cabaret), may have to close.

We are reachg out to the gay and straight muni to e together and help durg our search for the next owner. “I hope what happens is that the gay crowd will e here and meet some nice straight people, and the straight people will e here and have a great time, ” said then manager Craig Cooley. “I thk the bottom le the new culture is that the gay clubs are not exclively gay anymore, and there are a lot of straight people that like gay clubs bee they say they’re a lot more fun, ” he said.

“I looked at the big picture and my first marketg qutn was, ‘Can Laguna Beach support a gay club? Gay bars around the natn have been disappearg, a trend attributed to greater social acceptance of gays, changg enomic forc and evolvg technology. Skyrocketg real tate pric have kept young gays out of the cy and have led tablished gay rints to sh out and move to other ci, such as Palm Sprgs.

LAGUNA’S LAST GAY BAR JEOPARDY

Now Cooley has to see whether the improvements will pay off – whether gays still want a place to ll their own. Laguna Beach was once spoken of the same breath as Wt Hollywood, Fire Island and Provcetown, if a miature versn of those more famo gay enclav.

WILL THE LAST GAY BAR LAGUNA BEACH PLEASE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS?

Wh walkg distance of the spot was a one-block district that boasted a handful of gay bars and rtrants – Ltle Shrimp (which later beme Woody’s); Coast Inn, which hoed the legendary Boom Boom Room; and Ma Street Bar & Cabaret, which also went by Bounce. Bob Gentry, who served on the Cy Council om 1982 to 1994, was one of the first openly gay mayors the untry. “They were the first mon public spac for the gay muny, ” said Lus Hilrbrand, a UCI profsor of film and media studi who has wrten about the gay rights movement.

“They were unrstood as social stutns, and much of the foundatnal gay rights activism was about claimg and fendg gay bars. Gentry relled holdg meetgs on mpaigns and anti-gay iativ some of Laguna Beach’s bars.

Perhaps the heyday of Laguna Beach’s gay scene was long gone by the time the storied Boom Boom Room closed 2007 after a Beverly Hills billnaire bought the Coast Inn wh plans – never rried out – to turn to an upsle boutique hotel. John Wallace Benecke, a Laguna Beach terr signer, said growg social acceptance had begun makg gay clubs ls necsary as a refuge – a trend that’s only grown as gay marriage has been legalized. But his own life as a gay man hasn’t been easy – he believ he lost at least one job bee of his sexualy – and he often found a sense of belongg the gay clubs he equented.

NO MORE CHEERS AS LTLE SHRIMP FAC LAST CALL : LANDMARK: MONDAY’S CLOSG OF LAGUNA BEACH’S LONGTIME GAY HANGOUT SADNS S CTOMERS.

He’s pned s long-term succs on the notn that gays no longer need to stand apart om their neighbors – and neher do gay tablishments. One recent night at Ma Street, a patron held up his smartphone when asked about the state of gay bars. “This is what’s killg them, ” he said, holdg up a social media se that gay people e to get touch wh one another.

 CALIFORNIA LBIAN AND GAY BARS, RTRANTS, LODGG, PRI EVENT, BS MAPS

“Although younger people may feel more tegrated to mastream culture, my stunts still feel a sense of disvery gog to gay clubs that nnot be replited other ways, ” he said. For some, this is precisely why gay bars – or really any of what the soclogist Ray Olnburg lled “third plac, ” those rmal gatherg spots outsi of work and home – mt endure.

It would build a float for the Long Beach gay pri para, though that required first holdg a fundraiser – maybe a parkg lot yard sale? Young men holdg hands, Will-and-Grace typ, the ocsnal gaggle of cur straights, the random lbian uple--all would gather on weekends at Woody’s at the Beach, a ttage-y gay bar. Before Laguna Beach was njurg imag of drama-prone TV teens and oceanont mansns, was the cy that elected Ameri’s first openly gay mayor.

Woody’s, unr one owner or another, had been gay for two block-long promena between them was like a miature Wt Hollywood the heart of once-nservative Orange County, and lols sisted the town wouldn’t be self if went the Boom Boom Room was sold to a billnaire wh plans to eventually turn the se to a boutique hotel. When the new Avila’s El Rancho opened last month, leavg the Boom, as is lolly known, to boom alone to an uncerta future on s si of the highway, the block took on the feel of both a begng and an now, though the margaras at the new place are both popular and lic, the talk of the town is what will bee of the lol gay scene.

FOOD + FUN AT SOCAL’S ORIGAL GAY BEACH

Or, as a quipster at a ffeehoe put one recent morng: “Will the last gay man Laguna please turn out the lights?

From South Beach to San Francis, progrs and enomics are creatg siar gay neighborhoods are thrivg some ci--Hoton, for example--other, more settled enclav are changg fast. In Wt Hollywood, straight llege kids have filtrated gay bars, sometim by the bload, and one of the biggt ncerns is what a cy official has termed “heterosexualizatn. ”Matt Foreman, executive director of the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force, has watched the velopment wh mixed feelgs.

The Inter, he explas, has ma ls important for gays and lbians to go to special bars and muni to meet each other. And the once-blighted neighborhoods that were settled by gays--often bee they felt unwele elsewhere--now are so gentrified, many s, that younger people n’t afford them. “Property valu go up and straight fai move and gay people move on, ” Foreman says, “eher bee they want to palize on their vtment or simply n’t afford to live there anymore.

THE 5 BEST MOSW GAY CLUBS & BARSSEE ALL THGS TO DOGAY CLUBS & BARS MOSW

In some stat the Midwtern heartland, for example, the crease was as much as data, Gat says, pat a more diverse picture than ever before of the natn’s gay and lbian populatn--and prent a far more diverse map of where they are livg.

Among other thgs, the numbers show an apparent out-migratn of same-sex upl om gay enclav such as San Francis to ls expensive suburbs and nearby ci such as San Jose, Oakland and Orange County, gay anizatns report siar movement: “The gayt town Orange County is still overwhelmgly Laguna, ” says Jon Stordahl, vice chair of the board of directors of the Center Orange County, a gay, lbian, bisexual and transgenr service anizatn. “But the send-gayt is Aliso Viejo, a new muny jt over the hill wh more entry-level hog.

Though several of the unty’s gay-only bars have closed the last year, they have been supplanted by suburban clubs Orange, Irve and Costa Ma that have reached out to their new market wh special nights for gay patrons. No, he is not the last gay man Laguna--the 2000 cens shows only four ci California wh a higher proportn of same-sex hoeholds.