The Whe Horse Bar's gay 90th, and a new owner :: Bay Area Reporter

Contents:

• THE WHE HORSE BAR'S GAY 90TH, AND A NEW OWNER
• AGAST THE GAY BARS: THE WHE HORSE PROTT
• AMERI’S OLST GAY BAR IS TURNG 80

THE WHE HORSE BAR'S GAY 90TH, AND A NEW OWNER

Patty Nishimura Dgle took over Oakland's Whe Horse Bar om longtime gay owner, Chuck Davis, who owned the bar for more than 20 years, on July 4, 2022.

Oakland's longstandg queer bar through the panmic and revery, the Bench and Bar and Club 21 closed 2019 jt before the has taken a slow approach to her ownership of the 90-year-old gay bar marked by a rabow crosswalk on Telegraph Avenue Oakland's Teml neighborhood. It survived the Deprsn, World War II, gay bar raids (somehow the bar was never raid), the HIV/AIDS crisis, the panmic, and multiple enomic downturns.

She is workg to prerve as many of the stori as possible and unravel some mysteri, such as how 's possible the bar never got raid by police when beg gay was illegal and only had one prott, s hidn safe, and the red light over the bathroom.

AGAST THE GAY BARS: THE WHE HORSE PROTT

Ri, a San Jose native, and she have lived Oakland sce land San Francis the 1990s for llege at San Francis State Universy and h the gay mec's thrivg club scene.

Dgle fell love wh the gay nightlife and started dreamg of owng her own queer bar someday, she said. "There might be a ltle b of misunrstandg om the very begng, " the gay Sgaporean man said about the change of the old bartenrs who would greet him regularly. In the early ’60s, police shut down nearly half the gay bars — but the Whe Horse stayed open.

AMERI’S OLST GAY BAR IS TURNG 80

“Sce the 2000s, when I first moved to California and I was a gay-by, ” said Ac. We may never know whether really was; official rerds show the venue opened 1933, but is believed operated as a gay speakeasy for an unknown perd of time before that durg the Prohibn era.

That space had reportedly drawn a mixed crowd of gays, lbians, and heterosexuals the early part of the Twentieth Century, and was n by a lbian.

Facg homophobia the 1950s om the landlord, the manager at the time told the regulars to grab their stools one day and they all moved to a space up the street, which is still lled Cafe Lafte Exile — and was a favore hangout of playwright Tennsee Williams. The Whe Horse today is both a monument to the lbian and gay past and one of the only bars where gays n feel a te sense of muny, where younger and olr gays n enjoy each other’s pany. Operatnal sce 1933 (or que possibly before sce rerds were not kept durg Prohibn), ’s the olst ntuoly operatg gay and lbian bar the Uned Stat.