Will The Last Gay Bar In Laguna Beach Please Turn Out The Lights?

The bungalow at Pacific Coast Highway and Cress Street used to be a happy hour beacon in Laguna Beach. Young men holding hands, Will-and-Grace types, the occasional gaggle of curious straights, the random lesbian couple—all would gather on weekends at Woody's at the Beach, a cottage-y gay bar. By midnight, the party would spread down the block to the venerable Boom Boom Room, with its dancing and drag queens, and to Bounce, a smaller joint across the street.
Sometimes neighbors complained. Sometimes tourists gawked and hollered. But the scene, like the town's art galleries and surf shops, was part of the area's character and history. Before Laguna Beach was conjuring images of drama-prone TV teens and oceanfront mansions, it was the city that elected America's first openly gay mayor. Its incidence of AIDS was, for a time, among the highest per capita in the nation. The Boom Boom Room is where Rock Hudson and Paul Lynde and Bette Midler once partied. Woody's, under one owner or another, had been gay for two generations.
The block-long promenade between them was like a miniature West Hollywood in the heart of once-conservative Orange County, and locals insisted the town wouldn't be itself if it went away.
Then the Boom Boom Room was sold to a billionaire with plans to eventually turn the site into a boutique hotel. Within a year, the owners of Woody's got an offer to cash out. A family-owned Mexican restaurant took over the space. Down went the fence that hid the back patio. In came the highchairs. When the new Avila's El Ranchito opened last month, leaving the Boom, as it is locally known, to boom alone into an uncertain future on its side of the highway, the block took on the feel of both a beginning and an ending.
And now, though the margaritas at the new place are both popular and delicious, the talk of the town is what will become of the local gay scene. Or, as a quipster at a coffeehouse put it one recent morning: "Will the last gay man in Laguna please turn out the lights?"
Laguna Beach isn't alone in its evolution. From South Beach to San Francisco, progress and economics are creating similar debates.
Though gay neighborhoods are thriving in some cities—Houston, for example—other, more settled enclaves are changing fast. The Castro district in San Francisco has had to make room for more and more straight families. In West Hollywood, straight college kids have infiltrated gay bars, sometimes by the busload, and one of the biggest concerns is what a city official has termed "heterosexualization."
Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, has watched the development with mixed feelings. "The loss of these enclaves does hurt and is something to be deeply concerned about," he says.
On the other hand, much of the change is being driven by inexorable forces. The Internet, he explains, has made it less important for gays and lesbians to go to special bars and communities to meet each other. And the once-blighted neighborhoods that were settled by gays—often because they felt unwelcome elsewhere—now are so gentrified, in many cases, that younger people can't afford them.
"Property values go up and straight families move in and gay people move on," Foreman says, "either because they want to capitalize on their investment or simply can't afford to live there anymore."
And underlying it all may be an even bigger factor: the power of acceptance, says UCLA demographer Gary Gates. The post-HIV era and the debate over same-sex marriage, he says, have brought about a major shift in public attitudes and "a fairly big coming-out process."
As a senior research fellow at UCLA's Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, Gates published an analysis of recent U.S. Census data. Between 2000 and 2005, he says, the census showed a 30% increase in the number of same-sex couples, and a big part of the reason appears to be that these couples felt freer to report their existence. In some states in the Midwestern heartland, for example, the increase was as much as 81%.
The data, Gates says, paint a more diverse picture than ever before of the nation's gay and lesbian population—and present a far more diverse map of where they are living. Among other things, the numbers show an apparent out-migration of same-sex couples from gay enclaves such as San Francisco into less expensive suburbs and nearby cities such as San Jose, Oakland and Berkeley.
In Orange County, gay organizations report similar movement: "The gayest town in Orange County is still overwhelmingly Laguna," says Jon Stordahl, vice chair of the board of directors of the Center Orange County, a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender service organization. "But the second-gayest is Aliso Viejo, a new community just over the hill with more entry-level housing."
Gay night life has changed too, Stordahl says. Though several of the county's gay-only bars have closed in the last year, they have been supplanted by suburban clubs in Orange, Irvine and Costa Mesa that have reached out to their new market with special nights for gay patrons.
"Success comes at a price," he says, "and part of that success is that the old institutions that catered to us because we had no place to go—maybe we don't need so much anymore."
That's slim comfort for Fred Karger, who during a recent lunch hour sat in a booth at what used to be Woody's, eating a chicken quesadilla. No, he is not the last gay man in Laguna—the 2000 census shows only four cities in California with a higher proportion of same-sex households. But he's worried: "You're not going to have people moving in if there's no life here—no gay life."
Karger is a 57-year-old retired marketing and public relations consultant who has split his time between Los Angeles and Laguna Beach for a decade. When word got out last year that the Boom Boom Room might close, he founded an organization called Save the Boom!!! to do something about it. Last month, the group presented the City Council with nearly 6,000 signatures on a petition begging the city to intercede and keep the bar open.
The council expressed sympathy but took no action; the bar is expected to stay in business at least through this summer. The permitting for the new project could take several years, during which he hopes the new owner can be persuaded to keep the Boom Boom Room alive.
Still, Karger and others say, there is more at stake in Laguna Beach than buff guys and cold beers, and it's not a gay-or-straight worry. The fear of too much change too quickly has, in recent years, become a sort of official town motif. As recently as a decade ago, Laguna Beach could regard itself as a bohemian hangout, more Bolinas than Bel-Air. Now when tourists think of the town, they're more likely to picture rich reality-show kids than alternative lifestyles and artists.
The median home price has risen to $1.5 million. Boogie boards make way for Botox parties at the high school's annual silent auction. And the new Lagunans—the ones investing millions of dollars in their tear-down beach shacks—aren't as tolerant of bars in general as were the less uptight old-timers.
Joel Herzer, the former owner of Woody's, says a key reason he decided to sell—aside from his desire to spend more time in Palm Springs, where his partner lives and gay business is thriving—was a push by surrounding homeowners to ban nonresidential parking, which would have profoundly impacted his business.
"People move to this little beach community and say they don't want it to change, and then the first thing they do is try to make it into Mission Viejo," he says.
Thus, Karger's quest to save the granddaddy of Laguna's gay bars—an offbeat one maybe, but then again, his adopted community once was an offbeat place. And when a town like Laguna Beach loses its gay soul, he asks, who'll be left to save it from total straightness?
He pauses as the lunch plates are cleared by a young gay waiter who jokes that he hasn't been to the Boom Boom Room since the days when he'd sneak in as a teenager. In the background, a toddler shouts—"BABABABABA!!"—at his mother and father at the next table.
In the lunch-hour sunshine, it's hard to remember what this place looked like when it was still Woody's, before it became just a nice lunch spot somewhere between where we're going and where we've been.
from West Magazine

Woody's Loss Hits Home

A lot of anger is being directed at the owner of Woody's restaurant after the revelation that the longtime gay establishment would be turned over to a Mexican restaurant chain on Feb. 3. That's less than two weeks away.
The prospective new operator has reportedly indicated to one person that he will "cater to the community" — and, while it may be wishful thinking that the "community" he refers to will be Laguna's gay community, it's a nice thought.
Some who are angry want to punish Woody's owner by refusing to patronize other establishments he operates.
They are furious that he apparently took no steps to try to find a gay owner to keep the place operating as a gay haven.
The soon-to-be-former owner, Joel Herzer, has responded that he didn't want to launch a public search for a new gay owner because he didn't want to alarm his employees and also because he felt it would be a futile effort.
Herzer points to the year-long effort by the owner of the Boom Boom Room and Coast Inn to find someone in the gay community to take over that location, to no avail.
It would be unrealistic to expect Herzer or any property owner in Laguna Beach not to engage in sound business practices when looking to sell.
Property values in Laguna Beach have gone through the roof, and it's very difficult to find someone with deep pockets who wants to serve a relatively small segment of Laguna Beach.
The new owner of the Boom Boom Room and Coast Inn reportedly has big plans for the spectacular ocean-view property, and the Boom Boom Room will have to go.
Somehow, the sudden demise of cozy little Woody's — remembered by many as "Little Shrimp" — has hit people harder than the long-drawn-out death of the legendary nightspot where Rock Hudson held court.
It's as if a safety net for gays in Laguna and beyond has been pulled away. It's a stab in the tender heart of a community that has survived many hard times — including having the highest per capita incidence of AIDS and HIV in the nation.
Optimists point out that the climate for gays and lesbians has changed, and, in the New Millennium, gays and straights mix together as never before.
The social segregation that many of the older generation grew up with and take for granted has been all but erased by a new generation that doesn't see what the big deal is in being straight or gay.
Still, it's very hard to give up a longtime security blanket, and intimate, friendly Woody's was one.
When Woody's is no more, and an Avila's El Ranchito restaurant is in its place, we'll see if gays feel comfortable there or not. We doubt you'll see same-sex couples holding hands and openly flirting.
The fact is that Laguna Beach is fast losing its status as a sanctuary for the gay community — and that is sad.
from The Coastline Pilot

Upscale Gay Laguna Eatery To Close

LAGUNA BEACH, CALIFORNIA - Woody's at the Beach – a popular upscale gay bar and bistro in South Laguna – will close next month and hand over its keys to Orange County-based Avila's El Ranchito.
Woody's managing partner Joel Herzer said in a statement posted on the restaurant's Web site that he has sold the seaside property to the Mexican food chain. The restaurant will be Avila's seventh in Orange County.
"This was a difficult decision to make," Herzer said in the Wednesday memo. "I would like to express our sincere thanks for all the support and patronage we've had from the community."
The Laguna Beach restaurant had earned a reputation as one of the city's most trendy eateries. The 2007 Zagat Survey for Orange County called the gay establishment "a laid-back Laguna local tradition" that served dependable California fare and the best martinis in town.
On Thursday, Herzer said he is not closing Woody's because of a downturn in business. Instead, he decided to sell the 7,500-square-foot property so he can focus on two other restaurants he operates in Palm Springs.
"It's more of a quality-of-life issue for me," he said.
Herzer said he put out feelers last year that the coastal property was for sale. However, the only serious takers were the Avilas, he said.
He said he's happy to hand the parcel over to a family-run chain.
Herzer, who has been active over the years in promoting Laguna Beach as a gay destination, could not provide an exact date for the restaurant's closure. He expects the property to change hands in February.
The closing comes on the heels of troubles at another gay landmark in Laguna Beach. Last year, news of the impending demise of the Boom Boom Room triggered a battle to keep that gay bar open. In the summer, the bar got a break from its landlord, negotiating a lease extension through September 2007. The bar is inside the 24-room Coast Inn.
In May 1995, Laguna Beach's oldest gay dinner club, Little Shrimp, closed its doors after 31 years.
When longtime Woody's and Boom Boom Room patron Fred Karger heard about the restaurant's closure, he said he contacted the new owners immediately. Karger, a 10-year Laguna resident, founded the Save the Boom organization last year.
"My first concern was would it (Avila's) be a gay establishment," Karger said.
He said a member of the Avila family told him the Mexican eatery will cater to the local community. The Avilas could not be reached for comment Thursday.
In his memo, Herzer said he will "leave a part of his life behind" when he shuts down Woody's next month. "Thank you again for the privilege of becoming part of your lives."
El Ranchito opened its first restaurant in Huntington Park in 1966. Six of its eight restaurants are in Orange County.
from The Orange County Register