San Francisco supervisors have sent to Mayor London Breed a police code change aimed at allowing traditional gay bathhouses to return to the city. With a 30-day deadline to sign the ordinance into law, the outgoing Breed is expected to make it her last major LGBTQ-focused policy enactment before she leaves office in early January.
Yet advocates of seeing the businesses reopen after a nearly four-decade absence don't expect to see a bathhouse catering to men who have sex with men anytime soon. In fact, the executive director of the city's Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District in western South of Market told the Bay Area Reporter it could take two years before one opens its doors, hopefully in or nearby the SOMA neighborhood that historically had been home to many gay bathhouses in the 1970s and early 1980s.
"So, opening anything in San Francisco takes a while for permits and that sort of thing. If someone were going to start applying for permits now, it might ... it is hard to say how long it would actually take," said Robert Goldfarb, a gay man who has spoken with several people interested in operating a gay bathhouse. "It could take at least a year for permits and, with some buildout, I am hoping somewhere inside of two years."
The B.A.R. in September had spoken with two individuals interested in doing so: Joel Aguero behind the website castrobaths.org, and Nathan Diesel with the website newbathhouse.com. Neither at the time said they had the financial capital already lined up to do so, and neither responded to requests for comment for this article.
Goldfarb told the B.A.R. that he believes there are several entrepreneurs with "viable" plans for operating a bathhouse he has spoken with this year. And more could come forward once it is clear they can operate again in San Francisco.
"I think some of the people I have talked to have business experience, and also access to adequate resources," said Goldfarb, who is hopeful of seeing at least one bathhouse open in, or nearby, the boundaries of the leather district. "We love openings."
He added that leather district leaders are "hopeful and optimistic" there will be a bathhouse "in the foreseeable future" once again in SOMA.
"I know several people are interested in opening a bathhouse, and having the removal of the last legislative barrier will enable that to happen," said Goldfarb.
Last hurdle
The hurdle he was referring to is a provision added to the city's police code in 1973 that not only prohibits having locked rooms in bathhouses, a key feature of those catering to a queer male clientele, but also requires owners of public bathhouses to keep a daily register of their patrons that at any time can be demanded to be seen by either police or a health department employee. In October, gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman introduced an ordinance to excise what he and other LGBTQ advocates consider to be an outdated, homophobic penal code.
The 10 supervisors without comment unanimously voted to do so at their December 3 meeting, having first done so last month. Ordinances require two votes by the board in order to be passed and sent to the mayor. (Former District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani took her oath of office as the new 19th Assembly District member Monday, December 2.)
As the B.A.R. has been reporting on since 2020, Mandelman has led the legislative push at City Hall to remove a number of bureaucratic barriers that have de facto outlawed gay bathhouses in San Francisco since the early days of the AIDS epidemic. It began with ending rules enacted in the 1980s by the San Francisco Department of Public Health that not only banned private rooms with locked doors at bathhouses but also required staff to monitor the sex of their patrons.
The regulations had resulted in gay bathhouse owners closing their doors, leaving just gay sex clubs without locked rooms for rent, with Eros in the Tenderloin currently the only one operating today. Mandelman's ordinance rescinding the health code bathhouse rules was enacted in 2021.
He then introduced in 2022 another ordinance to update the city's zoning codes to allow for gay bathhouses to be situated in the city's LGBTQ neighborhoods of the Tenderloin, SOMA, and in the Castro district that Mandelman represents at City Hall. It again passed unanimously by the supervisors and was signed into law by Breed.
But as those interested in getting permits to open a bathhouse began inquiring with city officials about the process, the issue with the police code's Article 26 popped up. Mandelman is hopeful it is the last roadblock that needs to be dealt with.
"We weren't sure it was going to be a problem. It turned out to be a problem," Mandelman had told the B.A.R. earlier this fall.
The police department supported Mandelman's ordinance, telling the supervisors' Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee last month it had no interest in being in the business of permitting bathhouses. It would still respond to any complaints of illicit activity or other matters requiring a police response at such establishments.
LGBTQ health advocates also spoke in support of doing away with Article 26. Justice Dumlao, community mobilization manager at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and an advocate with the HIV Advocacy Network, had stressed at the committee hearing that the city's public health policies need to be based not on stigma but on "science and evidence."
In this case, he pointed to how HIV is now a treatable disease whose transmission is preventable via the use of medications like PrEP. Sexually transmitted infections can now be treated with doxyPEP. Bathhouses could provide a venue to educate patrons about the preventative medicines and other sexual health strategies.
"There is no longer a need for these restrictions from the 1970s and 1980s," he said of the city codes governing bathhouses.
David Hyman, who serves on the leather district's board, had argued the rules prohibiting traditional gay bathhouses are "hurtful economically" in addition to being no longer necessary.
"My personal view is Article 26 in the police code is archaic, ambiguous, and it is insulting," said Hyman, 72, a gay man who moved to the city in the 1970s and patronized the SOMA bars and clubs then operating. "Actually enforcing it would be wasteful of police resources, possibly unconstitutional, and of no or little value to the cause of public health safety."
Speaking to the B.A.R. Tuesday ahead of the supervisors' second vote on Mandelman's ordinance, the leather district's Goldfarb said he is hopeful it will be the final change needed in city codes relating to bathhouses.
"We don't believe there are any more," he said. "That is not to say one might turn up."
Updated, 12/4/24: The article originally had the wrong name for an SFAF staffer who spoke at the hearing. It was Justice Dumlao.
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