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Gay Cosmos

Gay Bars

The special position of gay bars in the gay subculture is something I have always felt was not properly appreciated by respectable gentlemen homosexuals. Or rather, it is appreciated, for those who speak of the bars with disdain nonetheless rely on the bars for fund-raising and organizing. What the respectable gentlemen homosexuals refuse to do is to acknowledge the special place of these uniquely gay institutions.

The gay bar as an institution, of course, is not the same thing as the gay bar as a business. Many bars which cater to a homosexual clientele never do become gay bars in the institutional sense. Moreover, the gay bar as an institution is very different from a bar or nightclub in the majority culture.

I wrote the following articles while I homeless. The articles are about two very different kinds of gay bars that had developed as institutions. The Study in Hollywood is one of the best examples of a multi-racial gay bar I have ever encountered. The Apartment (aka The New Apartment, Dirty Sally's, Sally's, Sally's Apartment, Sleazy Sue's) was in better times my home bar, and after it closed the empty building became my home while I completed Travels with Lizbeth.

Harassment vs. Protection:

Police actions at Hollywood bar stir feelings of ambivalence

Law-abiding black and gay people have good reason to have mixed feelings about the police.

We want protection, not only from the crimes that could happen to anybody, but also from the hate crimes perpetrated by racists and homophobes. On the other hand we have experienced, or know someone who has experienced, police harassment, police entrapment, or even police violence, because racism and homophobia exist in police departments.

When police visit a gay bar with a large black following three times in less than three weeks, ambivalence about the police tilts toward suspicion.

Uniformed officers of LAPD entered The Study in Hollywood shortly before closing Sunday morning April 15 [1989]. They ordered the music turned down and the lights turned up. Customers were told to stand with their hands flat on the bar. That was third time since March 29. On a previous visit police checked IDs and arrested seven customers for outstanding traffic warrants. Another time police searched customers for weapons. Three times seemed like a pattern to customer Jay Bradshaw. He asked officers why they had entered the bar. Police said they were looking for someone.

Bradshaw believes the police visits were related to an incident that occurred late in 1988. The Lodge, another bar owned by Study proprietor Stu Zinn, was shut down briefly in December for alleged occupancy violations. Bradshaw believes that a subsequent meeting between owner Zinn, five city council members, and representatives of the LAPD embarrassed LAPD. Bradshaw suspects that events at The Study are LAPD's retaliation.

But I visited The Study and other customers had other theories. "It's a bad corner, man," a black customer told me. "No question about it. They are dealing drugs out there."

"Out there" is the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Western Avenue. It is a bad corner. They are dealing drugs out there. The #1 bus from downtown stops on Hollywood Boulevard and around the corner on Western the #207 bound for Western and Imperial Highway [that is, into the heart of what is inaccurately known as South Central LA] boards passengers. At night, especially on a weekend night, large numbers of people, mostly black, stand, sit and lean on things along Western.

Many of them are waiting for the bus, but when the #207 departs, many also remain. Some who remain are just hanging out, some are drinking, some are panhandling, some are waiting at the window of TY&T Burgers at the corner, a few seem to be hooking or hustling but, yes indeed, some are dealing drugs.

Local residents think Hollywood and Western is the worst corner in Hollywood. They recall an apparently random stabbing at the bus stop—the victim had been sleeping on the bench. They refer vaguely to a number of shootings and muggings. When I observed the area a beer bottle flew out of a passing car, bounced off a wall, and shattered a couple of feet away. It could have happened anywhere. But the perception is that it is the sort of thing more likely to happen at Hollywood and Western.

The Study is on Western, several hundred feet north of Hollywood Boulevard, set back on a partially fenced lot. Like many gay bars, The Study does not look like much from the outside. Inside, The Study seems very far away from the corner of Hollywood and Western. Although it is a small bar, it is as nicely furnished as any gay bar in Hollywood. The walls are adorned with smartly framed art prints and prominently displayed safe sex posters. The felt on the pool tables is like new. There are about a half-dozen small tables, a modest but adequate bar, and a cozy conversation area wrapped around a free-standing fireplace. The red leatherlike upholstery is well-maintained—after an hour I had found only one rip. The floor needed sweeping, but it was after 11 on a Friday night and the bar was busy.

The big difference between The Study and the street was the people. The crowd was attractive, masculine, about two-thirds black, mostly mid-20s to early 30s, and well-dressed in casual vein. The obvious hustlers and tacky drags common in some other Hollywood bars were not evident at The Study. A large sign over the bar reads: "No loitering. 3 drink minimum. No exceptions." I could not drink three cocktails the way they are poured at The Study, but a customer explained the sign was meant to discourage people from the street who might otherwise duck in and out of the bar.

Customers I talked to were ambivalent about the police visits, but the black patrons were, if anything, less suspicious of the police. "There is a real problem on the street," one black customer told me. "They [the police] ought to deal with it on the street. But since they won't, let 'em come in here. They'll see we have nothing to hide. And folks out there [on the street] might start thinking it is a bad idea to come in here."

Nearly everyone I spoke to expressed doubts that the police visits to The Study were related to the occupancy citation of The Lodge. They pointed out that The Lodge had not experienced further problems and neither had My House, another Hollywood bar owned by Zinn. A white customer thought the police simply saw black people going into The Study. "We can tell who belongs here and who doesn't," the customer said. "The police could tell the difference too if they could get past skin color."

But without talking to the individuals, how could the police make that distinction if not on the basis of something as superficial as clothing.

I observed a young man hop off the curb and exchange something with a passenger in a car southbound on Western Avenue. The man was somewhat younger than most of The Study's customers. He was dressed in a white T-shirt, high school jacket, jeans, and sneakers—all neat and clean. Since The Study's clients are mostly masculine, the young man differed from them in no obvious mannerism.

The difference was clothing. Could, would, should the police notice that in a mixed gay bar blacks dress up and whites dress down? Should police stick their heads in a gay bar; see the turtlenecks, slacks, polished shoes, and sports jackets; and shrug off a promising lead if they had one? On the other hand, if I could see the delivery being made, why could plainclothes police not see that same thing deal with the problem on the street.

There still is no answer to why the police visited The Study three times in less than three weeks. Customer Bradshaw says he complained orally to Nina Greenberg in Councilmember Mike Woo's Silverlake office and to Sgt. Dravidzius of LAPD's Hollywood office on Wilcox. Greenberg told me than since uniformed officers were involved she supposed the incidents were not vice operations. She referred inquiries to Brian Galbraith of the community relations office of LAPD in Hollywood. Galbraith told me that the matter was being treated as an inquiry and was being handled by Sgt. Dravidzius. Dravidzius's inquiry was not complete as BLK went to press. If there was a legitimate law enforcement objective of the incidents it hardly matters now what it was.

A pleasant place like The Study could not exist long in the environment of Hollywood and Western without a police presence in the area. People at The Study know that. But they also know LAPD has a history of racism and homophobia and for whatever reason LAPD is not dealing with the problems of the street on the street. Since a uniformed police operation is no secret to begin with, why are officers not more forthcoming about what they are looking for and why at the time of these incidents? Police might be surprised by the willingness of people to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement objectives.

Arrogance on the part of the police can only perpetuate our ambivalence.

Death of a Gay Bar

I had finally gotten paid by a magazine that bought a story from me when I was in Hollywood. After doing my laundry, sending money to have my manuscripts shipped from California, catching up on my correspondence—including sending out change of address cards listing Sally's Apartment as my new address—and buying tobacco at Oat Willie's, I decided to have a few $1 beers at the Apartment.

I recognized one of the TABC [Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission] officers right away. They were in plain clothes except for badges they wore where nerds wear pocket protectors. The one I recognized had cornered some college students at the washateria the night before and had made them pour out a 12-pack of Bud Light.

I glanced quickly around the bar. No one seemed close to underage. No one was seriously intoxicated. I relaxed a little. They called Jon out from behind the bar. He was the youngest-looking person in the bar, but surely they did not think he was too young to serve liquor.

After several very long minutes the lights came up and Warren's voice came over the PA: "Please surrender your cocktails to the bartenders. I don't know what's going on, but the TABC's here and we have to close at this time. Please surrender your cocktails to the bartenders now and leave the bar. And keep in touch."

I was at something of a loss. Eventually I just sat down on the wheelchair ramp. If this was the end of the Apartment, I wanted to see it out and absorb every moment of it, of the place where I'd met so many friends and lovers, of the place where I'd proofread the galleys (actually page proofs) of my books, of the place that was home—even when I had a place to live—and the people who became my family when my relatives' god told them to reject me.

In 1968, the Apartment opened as a gay bar at 2828 Rio Grande, near 29th Street. Only two years before the headlines of The Austin American and The Austin Statesman cried out "Homosexual Ring Uncovered at U.T." The "ring" referred to gay men attending the university who associated with one another, exchanged addresses and phone numbers, and sometimes had parties.

The year after the Apartment opened, gay people, including a number of drag queens, rioted in Manhattan. The event, often called the Stonewall Rebellion, is generally taken as the beginning of the modern gay liberation movement. At issue was police harassment of a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn.

Gay bars have always been more than just bars in the gay community; they have become the principal institution of the gay subculture. Gay bars became so important because historically they were the only gay-identified places that the majority culture would tolerate.

If a "homosexual ring" was shocking to Austin in 1966, a gay church, a gay community center, or a real bookstore like Liberty Books would have been impossible in 1968. A bar was not. Indeed, the Apartment was not the first gay bar in Austin. Historically, the typical response when majority culture authorities were asked about the existence of gay bars was: "Those people have to go somewhere. Better to have some place we know about, where we can keep an eye on them." In many cities the price of this toleration was raids around municipal election time. Elsewhere there were tacitly accepted rules of engagement for routine police harassment and systems of direct bribes or carefully monitored campaign contributions.

Generally, gay bars only recently have had the possibility of operating entirely within the law. Most liquor codes included some kind of moral turpitude clause—some had explicitly anti-homosexual language—which provided a legal excuse to shut down gay bars whenever authorities felt like doing so.

The Apartment was never zoned as a bar. B.K. "Bunch" Brittain told the planning commission and later the city council that when he took over the Apartment, two years after it first opened as a gay bar, he was aware that the zoning was compatible with a restaurant that also served alcoholic beverages. He says he was told by city officials that this meant only that the Apartment could not advertise itself as a lounge or tavern and that it had to have the ability to serve food. No one appeared at either forum to contradict Brittain on this point. That the Apartment operated as a gay bar for more than 20 years speaks for itself.

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Another customer and I sat on the ramp, until Mr. Brittain arrived.

"What are you all doing out here?" he asked. "Why don't you come in for a drink?"

"But the TABC . . ." we both began.

"I can give away my liquor whenever I please," Bunch said. "Y'all come in for a drink."

We followed him inside. The TABC men took a dim view of Bunch giving away his liquor whenever he pleased, but evidently were not sure enough of their ground to forbid it. They left.

Bunch is a very generous man. But opening the bar was a smart move, if he had any hope of reopening the Apartment. The grapevine is the principal source of information in the gay community, and the rumor that a bar is closed or closing is the kiss of death. That Bunch would give away drinks to keep the bar open made me think he had some hope for the bar. And if things all got worked out in the morning, serving free drinks for three hours would be a small price to pay.

Sure enough, the phone began ringing. The tea [gossip] was stirring already. But Bunch could say, quite truthfully, "Our door is still open and we're still serving." Perhaps it was the third white Russian, but I deeply admired Bunch's knowledge of his business—and I compliment myself on knowing my culture well enough to understand perfectly the logic of it.

The specials sign was changed to read: "Tonight free drinks all night."

By 1 a.m. it looked a lot like an ordinary Thursday night at the Apartment. I didn't detect any large group of people who had heard of the free drinks. No, these were mostly people who had come to the Apartment because it was the Apartment, and had they found the door locked they would have been elsewhere spreading the news. Perhaps it was the vodka and tonics, but I began to feel very hopeful. I stayed until the last minute. But what bothered me was that one of the staff told me the word on the papers from the TABC men was "canceled." A very final sounding word.

In what appears to have been its last years, the Apartment was a principal place for fund-raising. In many periods the Apartment provided more than half the donations to the food bank for people with AIDS. It led the way in distributing free condoms and safe-sex information in Austin. It was the first gay bar to allow public health workers to offer HIV testing on premises, just as in pre-AIDS days it offered VD screenings.

The Austin Lesbian and Gay Political Caucus distributed voter registration materials, raised funds, and passed out its endorsement cards at the Apartment. The Rainbow Alliance for the Deaf held a car wash in the Apartment's parking lot. The Apartment was instrumental in organizing the gay community's Last Splash, Splash Day, and Fourth of July gatherings.

Yet none of that, not even all of it put together quite expresses what a gay bar is. Being gay in a homophobic culture means spending most of every day surrounded by the enemy. It means often, especially in Texas, being alienated from family, friends, from the church you were raised in, from co-workers and fellow students, and from virtually every institution of straight society. It means always running the risk of inadvertently overhearing what smiley-faced liberal people say behind your back.

A gay bar that is an institution means respite from that. It is where you have met the only friends you can count on. It is where you receive the only news you trust. The planning commission seemed amused when the Apartment was compared to a community center. But it is difficult to think of a more analogous nongay institution. Of course it is a place to have fun, too.

Several years ago the Shoalcrest Neighborhood Association began to cause trouble for the Apartment. Zoning laws have often been used to confine minority people. And the zoning situation provided the neighborhood association with the opportunity of destroying the oldest gay institution in town, the principal source of funds for gay community projects, and—save one—the only gay bar not confined to the downtown ghetto.

Brittain applied to the planning commission and appealed to the city council for bar zoning that would allow the Apartment to continue to operate exactly as it had for twenty years. "A bar in a residential neighborhood?" asked Mayor Pro Tem Sally Shipman in casting the deciding vote. "Never."

[Ms. Shipman wrote to The Austin Chronicle objecting to this passage. I have reviewed the tape of the meeting and find, contrary to my very distinct recollection, that she did NOT in fact utter these precise words. I believe, however, that the words fairly represent the position she took. Owing to a petition filed just before the meeting began, Ms. Shipman's vote was not the deciding vote, but was the deciding vote save one.]

That left the Apartment to try to comply with the zoning it had by opening a restaurant in the stand that faces 29th Street. At various times this stand has been a fajita shack, El Carnivore and several other ventures.

Unfortunately, in the twenty years the Apartment was open, statutory language had been enacted defining a restaurant as a place that derived at least 51% of its receipts from food sales. Short of a ruse, like requiring the purchase of a bread and butter finger sandwich (for, say, $1.75) with a drink (for, say, .50)—a solution once employed by bars in Indiana—there was no way the Apartment could comply. Gay bars in Austin have several times attempted to operate restaurants. The combination did not work at the Private Cellar, The West End Pub, or Uncle Charlie's. It has never worked here, but no one knows exactly why.

Antone's [a rhythm and blues bar popular with heterosexuals] which is only a few hundred yards from the Apartment, had a similar zoning situation. Antone's, however, got an exemption in 1986. Junior's, a keg and carry-out beer store across the alley from the Apartment, is not zoned for that kind of business, either. [This statement is not so. I based it on testimony before the planning commission, but Junior's is in fact properly zoned for off-premises sales.] It continues to operate.

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I was a little hung over in the morning, but I made myself as presentable as possible and Lizbeth and I went up to the Apartment. A sign on the door said "temporarily closed."

It was Friday. If the situation was not cleared up by the time folks started getting off work, the game would be up. At least for quite some time. Five-thirty came and went. It's like you go through the motions for a few days after someone close to you dies. You know intellectually, but it has not yet sunk in deep.

Sometimes I think if only they knew what they were doing they would stop. But then I remember. They know exactly what they are doing. They are systematically and deliberately doing their best to destroy a cultural group.

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