“Now gay people no longer look to Ripples or any other gay bars or businesses as a safe haven because they can go anywhere,” said Garcia. The city is recognized for its acceptance of LGBTQ+ people. It’s just one sign of how things have changed for gay people in Long Beach. They used to be blacked out for privacy and safety. Now you can see through the club’s windows. We’ve had to protect ourselves from different people: Aryan nation, crazy people with swords and knives and guns and everything else so it’s been a battle,” said Hebert. “We had a lot of problems with being accepted. Sometimes it was a matter of staying alive. I mean everybody in business was pretty much practically against you,” said Garcia. They own the Ripples bar, the land, and a small attached liquor store.īy the time they had bought out all the original owners in the 1980s they had some lessons to learn. Together they have established a reputation. They are partners in business and partners in life. RELATED l Woman Serves as Stand-In Mom at LGBTQ Weddings – It is the oldest gay club around, but it won’t be in business for much longer.Ĭlub Ripples co-owner Larry Hebert has been looking after the place for more than four decades. These are the spaces guaranteed not only to make everyone feel safe, but also to have a damn good time.LONG BEACH, Calif.
Here are the best bars and parties for a night of queer debauchery-from shirtless specials to ’90s dance parties and everything in between. In general, I expect our hopes for our community are the same as many others' hopes-that we are just trying to be a truly better community all the time."ĭespite the rainbow extending to more spaces throughout the District, gay bars will always be the most well-lit beacons for the DC queer community to let their hair down, perhaps for the first time ever. So, our community is not only diverse, but it is also very smart and that makes for a lively, vibrant nightlife. Also, DC is a place where people with ambitious career goals come to pursue things seriously. “Because our city is such a magnet for people from all over the world, that keeps our community incredibly diverse. We have all sorts of people and all sorts of personalities,” says DJ and nightlife entrepreneur, Ed Bailey. "DC’s LGBTQ+ community is truly remarkable. hard up for great bars, and recent years have seen the closing of long-established. The question of whether every place can now be considered safe in DC for queer people remains, but an ongoing shift is unmistakable as the LGBTQ+ community has begun to stake out their own space within more traditional watering holes, with outdoor beer garden Dacha, the trendy Takoda, and the bumping nightclub Flash as prime examples. Otherwise, JRs mostly acts as a mainstay in the D.C. Is it such a bad thing though? With each closure comes the inevitable, “where to now?” And the new answer seems to be: everywhere. Dupont Circle, once defined as the city’s gayborhood, is seemingly hanging on by a thread. Over the past few decades, countless openings, promising re-openings, and disappointing closings have taught us to expect the unexpected. The DC LGBTQ+ community is no stranger to change.