Laguna Beach was once a sanctuary, an oasis, a protective cocoon for men who loved men in ultra-conservative Orange County.
A whole block of South Coast Highway was home to gay bars, the most famous perhaps being the raucous Boom Boom Room, which was pouring its last drink 15 years ago as people danced on the bar and the crowd went wild. The Little Shrimp, a popular piano bar, was reborn as Woody’s and then Avila’s El Ranchito Mexican Restaurant. And on Saturday, October 22, the owners of Anchor Line Bar, aka Main Street Bar & Cabaret, are also scheduled to serve their final libations.
The Anchor Line is the last of Laguna’s vintage gay bars, a staple since 1958. Its future is bleak — it could be resurrected with new ownership and name, new design, and new zeitgeist — but the Nelson clan that almost ran it has two decades, is done.
“My brother Jimmy bought this bar 18 years ago to save what was left of gay Laguna,” said Nurse Wendy Nelson, sitting at the bar in the dim afternoon light. On the wall behind her was an “I can’t even think straight” sign.
But Jimmy Nelson died in August. Business was difficult even before COVID as Laguna’s land values skyrocketed and much of the gay community moved east to the Palm Springs area. Then came pandemic-related closures and rent increases and staff conflicts and open hostilities — The bar’s windows were smashed in 2020 — and Nelson said it was just time to let go.
It feels like the end of an era. But it’s happening across the country, not just in Laguna: According to the tally, half of America’s gay bars disappeared between 2002 and 2021 Data compiled by Greggor Mattson, Professor and Chair of Sociology at Oberlin College.
Why?
Add it to the rise of virtual hangouts — it’s easy to find like-minded people online — as well as rising rents, competition for the entertainment dollar, and a growing climate of inclusion that’s making these types of physical spaces less important than they once were for LGBTQ+ people , experts say.
But much is lost if they disappear.
“Sometimes I like to think of gay bars as archives,” Mattson said. “They can be very literal archives — in their attics are the account books measuring the economic life of the community, the Pride marches and floats that were organized there, the squares of AIDS quilts sewn.
“They are also metaphorical archives containing the life experience of our elders. We are a people who are not taught our history in high schools, so often our history – especially our local history – is there. What has it been like to be LGBTQ in Orange County over the past few decades? This comes from our elders. When we lose connection with them – who are often not online as much as younger people – we lose a part of our community and our history.”
Jordan C. Grasso, a UC Irvine graduate student in criminology, law, and society who studies the history and culture of these spaces, is skeptical of the “increasing tolerance” used to explain their decline.
“We can’t look any further than the recently proposed ‘Don’t Say Gay’ statewide law,” Grasso said via email. “In addition, more anti-LGBTQ+ laws were proposed in 2022 than any other year in recent history. Laws like these create an incredibly unsafe environment, not only for LGBTQ+ children (who are either forced to stay in the closet and develop psychological distress from internalized homophobia, or face potential abuse and harm for their coming out), but also for LGBTQ+ adults being scapegoated by the law – politicians at every turn in states like Florida and Texas, but also locally in Orange County.”
Economic reality, Grasso believes, plays a big part in the decline.
Grasso has found that gay bars are increasingly using ambiguous marketing to attract more customers in order to generate greater profits, which can be particularly problematic for queer women, who are being “doubly marginalized” by an emphasis on male-centric programming, as well as an influx of straight women, seeking shelter from the male harassment they find in regular bars.
“Every night at my research sites for my study of queer, female-centric bars and events, at least one or two people come up to me and ask, ‘Since when is this a straight bar?'” Grasso said. “So bars have a choice: open up to a wider clientele and stop being truly an LGBTQ+ bar or face financial difficulties.”
Over the past year, Grasso has spoken to several people fighting to open new gay bars for queer women and gender-segregated people in Southern California. “Even with investors, business plans and a track record of success from previous events, it’s virtually impossible to afford to lease a building, especially as gay neighborhoods are being gentrified and being bought up by more prominent investors and corporations,” Grasso said. “The buildings just cost too much money. Couple this with the growing post-pandemic inequality gap and it’s no wonder these companies aren’t staying open.”
Resistance
Historically, these places were of crucial importance. The early civil rights struggles for LGBTQ+ people were spearheaded by bar owners who insisted on the right to serve gay people.
New York had them Stonewall Uprising 1969, when New York police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay club in Greenwich Village, confiscating its liquor supply and roughly dragging away guests. Six days of protests and violent clashes with law enforcement ensued, and Stonewall became a catalyst for the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.
Before Stonewall had Los Angeles the black cat. It was New Year’s Day 1967; Police beat guests and arrested more than a dozen people for “indecent behavior” – same-sex kissing at the start of the New Year. Peaceful protests followed around the Silver Lake Bar and resulted in the birth of The lawyerthe nation’s oldest and largest LGBT publication.
“After Stonewall, bars have often served as community centers, yes, where people found romance, but also where they found jobs, friends, and information,” Mattson said. ” ‘Where’s a gay-friendly doctor?’ ‘My relationship is in trouble, where can we find a gay-friendly marriage counselor – even though we’re not allowed to get married?’”
It’s great that people can easily find each other online, but one of the lessons COVID has taught us is the importance of having physical places to gather, Mattson said.
Grasso agrees on the importance of meeting in real time in real space. “People meet online through social media and dating sites, but they still need a safe, physical place to meet, interact and form relationships without the burden or fear of anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and harm,” said Grasso. Every person Grasso interviewed “lighted up discussing it, walking into a gay bar for the first time…often one of the first times they feel completely at home, or at least understood and unquestioned about the love they have for others.” Experienced.”
There is hope even as the bars shrink, both Grasso and Mattson said. “Underground parties and events” are organized online, as are “pop-up parties” and “queer guerrilla bars” where people meet in an otherwise straightforward place “to show that they are at peace are there,” Mattson said.
Gay bars aren’t going away entirely, but they do need to adapt, Mattson said. Many of the old ones were “white men’s clubs,” and those that survive must appeal to the broadest reach of the LGBTQ+ community.
Formerly Anchor Line was Fleur de Lys and Bounce and Main Street Bar & Cabaret. We’ll see what it turns into next.
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