L.B. Council Effort to Shorten Gay Pride Event Draws Protest

‘If this had been the Green Elks Lodge . . .they would have been

treated the same.’

--John Dever, city manager

An effort by city officials to scale back a two-day gay pride festival to just one day has sparked a political battle at City Hall, with the event’s backers calling the move “a pretext for discrimination.”

After an effort by the City Council to resolve the dispute ended in a deadlocked vote Tuesday, the council put off the matter for two weeks.

The council, down to eight members because Councilman Marc Wilder is in Europe, tied 4 to 4 on whether to allow the festival at Shoreline Aquatic Park to run the full two days. The council will hear the issue again May 21, after Wilder has returned.

Council members Wallace Edgerton, Jan Hall, Thomas Clark and James Wilson supported use of the park for a two-day festival. Mayor Ernie Kell and council members Warren Harwood, Edd Tuttle and Eunice Sato backed a recommendation by City Manager John Dever that the event run only one day.

Applied 9 Months Ago

Leaders of Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride Inc., the group organizing the festival, said they applied more than nine months ago for a city permit but did not learn until last week that the event would be limited to one day.

Judith Doyle, the group’s president, said she is “very pleased” that the council delayed a decision on the matter until Wilder returns. Wilder has worked closely with the group and supports a two-day celebration, she said.

Susan McGreivy, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said she would file a lawsuit on the organization’s behalf if the city only allows a one-day celebration.

Arguing that other groups are often given permits for multiday festivals, McGreivy said that “all the evidence shows that the real reason they only got one day is because they’re a gay and lesbian group.”

McGreivy also said several council members appeared to be buckling under pressure from fundamentalist Christian groups. Since last year’s gay pride festival, fundamentalists have appeared at nearly every council meeting to protest the event.

‘An Issue of Morality’

“This is not a constitutional issue, it’s an issue of morality,” said resident Craig Garvey, the only opponent to address the council Tuesday. “After they consume alcohol, they will be parading around the streets displaying their gay pride.”

The festival, tentatively set for the weekend of June 15, is a fund-raiser for gay charities and includes a parade along Ocean Boulevard and other shoreline streets leading to the park. Organizers of the event fence off a large portion of Shoreline Park during the celebration and raise money by charging an admission fee.

Although similar celebrations have become common in homosexual enclaves such as San Francisco and West Hollywood, last year’s festival was the first event of its type in Long Beach.

City Manager John Dever said his staff recommended limiting the festival, which drew more than 8,000 people over two days in 1984, to one day because of heavy public use of the park. The decision came only recently, he said, because various city departments were studying the proposal.

“That’s one of the busiest weekends for the parks and shoreline areas,” Dever said. “We didn’t consider that organization any differently than we would any other group. If this had been the Green Elks Lodge or anyone else they would have been treated the same.”

Concern for Rights

Harwood agreed, saying he feels the use of Shoreline Park by organized groups infringes on the rights of private citizens.

“That park is unique,” Harwood said. “It’s the only facility of its type in the city, and it should be kept open to the general public.”

But Wilson argued that the council should let the festival run the full two days because no specific council policy has yet been adopted to regulate the use of city parks by private groups.

The festival organizers have “gone too far for us to stop them now and try to set a policy for use of Shoreline Park,” Wilson said.

Gay leaders maintain the city has tried to scuttle the celebration, ostensibly through economic sanctions. They said the city is charging a hefty price for police and other city services while limiting the group’s ability to raise revenue by cutting back the length of the celebration.

Judith Doyle, president of Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride Inc., said the nonprofit organization is being charged about $25,000 for city services associated with a one-day celebration. About $18,000 of that will go to the police department to provide extra officers during the parade, she said. Last year, she said, the group paid about $20,000 for police and other city services over two days.

Festival organizers made commitments of more than $30,000 for vendors and entertainment prior to learning about the shortened festival, Doyle said. The celebration needs to run two days to raise enough money to cover those expenses, she said.

“The city is trying to do indirectly what it cannot do directly,” McGreivy said. “To me, it’s a pretext for discrimination.”