Advice for gay tourists: Don’t come for the nightlife

“Why Are There No Gay Bars in Santa Fe?” That was the headline on a travel piece about Santa Fe posted last week on advocate.com.

Writer Daniel Reynolds noted the city’s established gay community and longstanding reputation as a gay-friendly destination, a place with an openly gay mayor that spawned one of the nation’s first LGBT retirement communities and which The Advocate, a national gay and lesbian magazine, in 2011 named the second gayest city in America, declaring, “This is where seasoned gays come to center themselves, but not in a boring way.”

But being a magnet for queer retirees has not been enough to maintain a once-thriving scene for gay bars, the writer observed, especially in a town where nightlife in general has toned down in recent years.

Citing The New Mexican’s coverage of the closings of the last gay bars in downtown Santa Fe, the Rouge Cat in 2013 and its successor, the Blue Rooster, in 2014, the article offered several reasons for the change, including an aging population, the economy and risks of drunken driving, as well as the hypothesis of some locals that “gay bars have become unnecessary when acceptance is so high. Gay people feel welcome wherever they go. So why limit one’s options.”

Reynolds advised gay travelers that looking for an all-night party misses the point in the City Different, which along with its surrounding countryside is “bursting with beauty and adventures that don’t require a DJ.”