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"The club was created in response to one virus and done in by another," Blow Buddies writes in a message on its website, alluding to the fact it was able to weather the ravages of the AIDS crisis, but not COVID-19.īlow Buddies operated as a membership- and cover-based venue, with all the furnishings of a well-appointed bathhouse. "Maybe as a social club," he said.Īccording to the mayor's office, San Francisco has seven primarily homosexual bathhouses, nine sex clubs and about a half-dozen bookstores where sexual encounters frequently occur.Īs of last month, the city had reported 470 AIDS cases, second to New York and ahead of Los Angeles.Landmark gay sex club Blow Buddies (933 Harrison St.), which has operated out of a nondescript SoMa storefront since 1988, will not reopen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Silverman suggested incorporating them into the licensing procedure, although it is not clear what kind of license might be granted a club established principally for anonymous sex. This does not necessarily mean closing the bathhouses, Silverman said, but rather turning them into non-sexual gathering places, perhaps by insisting on alterations to change the interior.Ĭontrolling sexual activity in private clubs and bookstores is another matter, since the city does not license them. I think we have to be realistic," Silverman said. If we walk in and two guys are holding hands or kissing, we're not going to close to place down. It is unclear how such activity would be defined.
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There was confusion about the legality of Silverman's plan and how to implement it.Ĭity attorney George Agnost said that, since San Francisco bathhouses must be licensed, the first step is to draft and adopt regulations granting licenses only to bathhouses that prohibit AIDS-transmitting sexual activity. "The gay bathhouses right now are a wonderful network of information for our men," he said. Jones said his bathhouse tries to educate men about AIDS. "You cannot have a bathhouse without having sex in it. "If they're going to send some 1984 Orwellian 'Big Brother' goons in there to see what people are doing, that's fine with me, but it's closing me down," said Bill Jones, owner of Sutro Baths, where heterosexuals and homosexuals often gather for anonymous sexual activity. Silverman's announcement was denounced by bathhouse owners and homosexual activists not at the news conference. This is not a government-against-group thing." We don't raid restaurants, and we don't raid hotels. I think it will be less difficult with the support of the community."Īsked whether that implied raids to check on bathhouse activity, Silverman said, "No, not raids. "The way we monitor restaurants and hotels now, we go in unannounced," he said. And city health inspectors will enforce the ban the way they check on compliance with other health regulations, he said. Research indicates that the often fatal disease is transmitted through blood and semen, and that homosexual and bisexual men with multiple sex partners make up the group with the highest risk of contracting it.Īs a result, Silberman said, "All sexual activity between individuals must be eliminated in public facilities in San Francisco where the transmission of AIDS is likely to occur."īathhouses will have to eliminate sexual activity to remain licensed by the city, Silverman said. "Things the way they are cannot continue," Silverman told reporters at a crowded news conference, as a dozen homosexual leaders and physicians stood silently behind him. Silverman today announced steps to ban sexual activity in homosexual bathhouses, sex clubs and the back rooms of bookstores. After more than a year of controversy over homosexual public meeting places that critics say contribute to the spread of AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), city public health director Mervyn F.