‘The are our hom’: LA gay bars fight to stay afloat after year of shutdown | Los Angel | The Guardian

Contents:

• AN O TO L.A.’S GAY RTRANTS, WHERE A MUNY N FD A HOME
• STILL HERE AND STILL QUEER: THE GAY RTRANT ENDUR
• WT HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORIC GAY NIGHTCLUB THE ABBEY IS UP FOR SALE
• REHOBOTH’S GALLERY 50 TO HOST SHOWS BY TWO GAY ARTISTS
• JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU
• THE BT GAY BARS AND CLUBS LOS ANGEL
• SANTA MONI AND VENICE BEACH GAY GUI
• GAY EATS: 9 LGBTQ RTRANTS SERVG UP DELECTABLE CULARY DELIGHTS PHOENIX, ARIZONA
• ‘THE ARE OUR HOM’: LA GAY BARS FIGHT TO STAY AFLOAT AFTER YEAR OF SHUTDOWN

AN O TO L.A.’S GAY RTRANTS, WHERE A MUNY N FD A HOME

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.

STILL HERE AND STILL QUEER: THE GAY RTRANT ENDUR

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. 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.

WT HOLLYWOOD’S HISTORIC GAY NIGHTCLUB THE ABBEY IS UP FOR SALE

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.

REHOBOTH’S GALLERY 50 TO HOST SHOWS BY TWO GAY ARTISTS

It’s the perfect place for gay men to meet on the Eastsi. The revolters, who clud transgenr people, gay men and “htlers” — acrdg to John Rechy, one of the men the police attempted to arrt, who tailed the event his 1963 novel “Cy of Night” — ntued their stand, the motn blockg off that strip of the street through the night and to the next revolt is wily regard as the first rerd event where people the LGBTQ muny took a stand agast police btaly.

It laid the foundatn for later uprisgs at the Black Cat Tavern Silver Lake (then Endale), Compton’s Cafeteria San Francis’s Tenrlo neighborhood, and then, most notorly, at the Stonewall Inn New York Cy, all of which occurred wh the ensug sence the gay rights movement, one uld argue, started not a bar, wh beer bottl crashg unr the glow of neon, but a ty rtrant servg doughnuts 60 years ago this month.

(Silvia Raza / For The Tim) Gay people have always gathered bars or secret clubs, sacrosanct for their abily to protect om outsi evils. Every gay person who mov to a new cy first seeks out the bars, to better unrstand the new environment.

JAGUARS ASSOCIATE STRENGTH ACH OUT AS GAY A FIRST FOR US-BASED PRO LEAGU

His workers troduced him to gay clubs such as RoosterFish, Rippl and Boom Boom Room, but the feelg of home “really cemented when I went to the gay rtrants. Rtrants, found across the untry, are what we the muny ll “gay rtrants”: spots that are eher owned by, or ter to, a largely gay — most often cis male — clientele (although no one would get turned away).

” (Silvia Raza / For The Tim) Some “gay rtrants” have terrs cked out rabow flags, amed pics of Bea Arthur as her “Goln Girls” character Dorothy Zbornak and posters of exuberant drag queens advertisg the next themed bnch. Some look like your n-of-the-l sual-dg rtrant, but the owners employ mostly gay wastaff who know how to liver the right amount of sass and a se to get you to orr that cnamon bun that everyone at the table says they won’t eat but then vours wh 20 sends.

Some jt happen to be loted gay neighborhoods and, if they’re welg, stand the tt of time as hallowed totems of the food, ankly, is never that good.

THE BT GAY BARS AND CLUBS LOS ANGEL

Gays have been gog there for s. If that don’t mer a gay affiliatn, I don’t know what do. But several plac around the untry, they rema anchors of safety and Raff for The New York TimPublished May 28, 2021Updated May 29, 2021Stt Frankel’s favore memori of New York gay rtrants aren’t about food.

SANTA MONI AND VENICE BEACH GAY GUI

Manat was so gay, had a sobriquet: rtrants, said Mr.

”But all those plac he so fondly remembers are long closed, as are Harvt, Orb’s and several others listed an article, headled “Rtrants That Roll Out the Wele Mat for Gay Ders, ” that ran this newspaper 27 years ago.

The panmic h the untry’s urban gay rtrants pecially hard, said Jt Nelson, the print of the Natnal LGBT Chamber of Commerce. MeMe’s Der, a popular queer rtrant Brooklyn, permanently closed November, cg shutdown measur and a lack of ernment rtrants, like gay bars, are also facg cris of inty and purpose a time that is many ways more welg than the past, when gay people sought out gay rtrants bee they offered safety and acceptance that uldn’t be found elsewhere.

GAY EATS: 9 LGBTQ RTRANTS SERVG UP DELECTABLE CULARY DELIGHTS PHOENIX, ARIZONA

Gay men equented plac like Orphan Andy’s, a mpy der om the same that’s still bs the Castro neighborhood of San Francis.

‘THE ARE OUR HOM’: LA GAY BARS FIGHT TO STAY AFLOAT AFTER YEAR OF SHUTDOWN

Atlanta had Waterworks, which a 1992 newsletter for the group Black and Whe Men Together lled the cy’s “only Black-owned gay rtrant.

And shiftg nceptns of sexualy and genr extend beyond what words like gay, lbian, male or female n acmodate. A gay rtrant n jt sound fuddy-duddy. “Many of the more privileged young queer people have grown up wh cln, so they don’t feel the need to be a place where you’re sheltered om heterosexism, ” said Julie Podmore, an urban geographer at Conrdia Universy may be the se New York Cy, where gay rtrants are gog the way of dosrs (if not yet extct — Elmo and other spots are still keepg their gay fan base fed) elsewhere the untry, many gay rtrants are thrivg — as treasured lol bs, facto muny centers, refug om ntug anti-queer vlence and potential paths forward for a rtrant dtry a recent Saturday night the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washgton, Annie’s Paramount Steak Hoe was by, and was gay.

Three 20-somethg gay men shared i.