LGBTQ-friendly bars work to withstand pandemic hit
Bars that cater to members of the LGBTQ community are not just bars: They serve as community hubs and safe spaces for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer folks.
LGBTQ bar owners and community members said that again and again during recent interviews. When their clubs were shuttered because of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March, those spaces were lost.
“These safe spaces, these warm spaces, these welcoming spaces to the LGBT community, to the queer community, become really important spots in our lives,” said Brendan Byrnes of Manhattan who, along with his husband Stephen Cabral, is a longtime patron of Julius’ Bar in Greenwich Village.
“Julius’ is more than a whiskey and a burger,” Byrnes said. “Julius’ is its history. Julius’ is representative of the oldest gay bar in the city and these spaces need to be saved, need to be nurtured and need to be supported at this time.”
While businesses have started to reopen for outdoor or takeout service, concern over an uncertain future remains.
“I know a lot of people deal with health issues and mental issues, anxiety, depression,” said Joe Cole, general manager of Georgie’s in Asbury Park, New Jersey. “But especially for the LGBT community, a lot of people were disowned by their family. They don’t have a good home life; sometimes work doesn’t accept them.”
Cole said Georgie’s, like fellow Asbury Park spots Paradise and Hotel Tides, is “a place where a gay person or trans (people), anyone, can go without being judged and they always feel welcome and they always feel like they can be safe here. So I think that had a lot to do with people’s peace of mind. Like, they didn’t have that safe spot to go anymore.”
“Straight people have almost everywhere in the world to find each other, but for the LGBTQ community, those places are limited to bars and community centers and organized support groups,” said Christian Fuscarino, executive director of Asbury Park-based education and advocacy organization Garden State Equality. “So it’s very important that all LGBTQ establishments get through this pandemic so that they’re here on the other side for our community to continue to thrive in safe spaces.”
Some of these safe spaces have been around for decades. In 1998, music producer Shep Pettibone bought the thenvacant Empress Hotel in Asbury Park; he opened the nightclub Paradise on the premises in 1999, and reopened the hotel in 2005.
“We were here and were always a place of home for those people to go when they felt they had nowhere else to go and couldn’t be comfortable in their own skin – and here they could just be who they are, not be judged,” said Kelly J. Martin, event coordinator for Paradise.
The pandemic didn’t just deprive customers of their favorite spots, either – it also cut off the income of countless independent businesses like Harlem’s Alibi Lounge, one of the only Black-owned LGBTQ bars in New York City.
“When, all of a sudden, a pandemic like COVID-19 tells you that you have to isolate, that you have to stay home and if you go to a bar, you go to a restaurant, you could be at a high risk to be exposed to the virus, it makes people not even think twice,” said Alibi Lounge owner Alexi Minko. “They decide, ‘Well, in that case I am not going to a bar, I’m not going to a restaurant until I know that it’s safer.’”
This time last year, Jersey Shore disc jockey Mick Hale was in the midst of his seven-years-running Tuesday night residency at Georgie’s; spinning every other Sunday at the Beach Bar on the Asbury Park Boardwalk; entertaining crowds at The Asbury hotel in Asbury Park, and rocking Rainbow Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania’s Poconos region. Hale has just one gig this summer: a Friday night engagement at The Asbury’s outdoor Salvation bar, and one of his July dates was rained out.
“When you’re going to a place that’s like your LGBTQ hangout, you’re going to see people that are like your other family, so you are a lot more, I think, close with them and want to get closer to people,” he said. “And right now, we’re in a situation where we’re supposed to be keeping a certain distance, which is very tough.”
One thing the pandemic didn’t change? The overhead that comes with operating a business.
“COVID-19 didn’t spare us from having to pay rent, having to pay taxes, having to pay our ongoing debt,” Minko said.
In the case of Alibi Lounge, that meant having to foot the bill on orders of up to $5,000 each with three different alcohol distributors.
“All of a sudden, you have to pay $15,000 worth of merchandise and you don’t have any revenue because you have zero customers,” said Minko, who opened Alibi Lounge in 2016.
Even with a partial reopening for takeout business, the volume of customers wasn’t nearly enough to cover expenses in a business where “even in good times, it’s already a very thin margin,” Minko said.
Minko is among the bar owners who’s turned to the public for help, launching a crowdfunding campaign in May that has raised more than $166,000 and counting.
“I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has given a dollar, or a cent, to the campaign,” Minko said.
Even Julius’ Bar – part of the National Register of Historic Places, the oldest gay bar in New York City and one of the oldest continually operating bars in the city overall, according to the National Park Service’s website – has had to go the crowdfunding route in an attempt to withstand the pandemic. Julius’ Bar has raised more than $97,000 via a GoFundMe campaign since early July.
Its Greenwich Village neighbor, the Stonewall Inn – designated by President Barack Obama in 2016 as the first national monument honoring lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights – has raised more than $320,000 on the platform.
Byrnes, whose wedding to Cabral in December 2014 happened at Julius’, said the bar’s struggle to survive has “been breaking our hearts.”
“And we know that we’re not alone, certainly with Julius’ and with so many gay and queer spaces in the city,” Byrnes said. “Julius’ is so special, and the thought that it is possible that that could go away because of the economic disaster of this pandemic has been upsetting and frightening.”
“With LGBT bars, it’s important that they stay alive and stay open because there are only so many of them,” said Helen Buford, owner of Julius’ Bar.
Julius’ Bar was the site of the landmark 1966 sip-in, a radical act at a time when the New York State Liquor Authority often penalized bars for serving members of the gay community. It’s been more than half a century since the sip-in at Julius’ and the subsequent 1969 uprising around the corner at the Stonewall Inn.
Buford said bars specifically geared toward serving those who identify as LGBTQ serve a vital purpose. “You can’t really walk into a straight restaurant and be open – yes, you can go and have food, you can sit at a table and have a meal – but it’s different when you’re in a gay bar, (where) you can sit with your partner, you can kiss your partner, you can hold hands,” she said.