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Schabarum Calls for End to Inspections of County’s Bathhouses

Times Staff Writer

A relaxed Health Department definition of AIDS high-risk sexual activity prompted Los Angeles County Supervisor Pete Schabarum on Tuesday to call for an end to spot inspections of the dozen gay bathhouses still operating in Los Angeles.

In a motion to be considered by the full Board of Supervisors next week, Schabarum said that a court ruling last year effectively stripped the county of any way to enforce the inspection program. Schabarum was a strong backer of the original bathhouse inspections that were launched in December, 1985.

Schabarum’s call for a halt to the random inspections met with resistance by county Health Director Robert Gates, who said, “I think what we’re doing is appropriate and I think at this point I would not support the motion.”

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Program Called Ineffective

But a health inspector, who asked not to be identified, said that the 17-month-old program is ineffective because gay bathhouse patrons are usually warned well in advance that an inspection team is on the premises. Consequently, activity that would be deemed in violation of the health ordinance is simply halted until inspectors leave, he said.

Prompting Schabarum’s proposal was a ruling last Aug. 28, in which Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John L. Cole upset a county effort to shut down four gay bathhouses, whose owners had argued successfully that the high-risk activity would simply move elsewhere if they closed their doors. Cole refused to order the bathhouses to eliminate private rooms, closely police their customers and expel those patrons engaging in high-risk sexual activity.

Before the ruling, the county, in a controversial move, had defined high-risk sexual activity as anal or oral sex with or without a condom. Many health officials, including those in Gates’ department, had disagreed in court documents over whether use of a condom during anal sex would constitute a high-risk activity.

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New Definition

In light of Cole’s ruling, Gates’ staff redefined the high-risk activity to limit it to anal intercourse without a condom. All references to oral sex were eliminated.

Referring to the new guidelines, Schabarum said, “It is clear that further attempts to control the spread of AIDS by regulating bathhouses would be costly and ineffective.

“Persons who frequent gay bathhouses are playing Russian roulette,” Schabarum said. “While I am confident the majority of this board feels such establishments should be closed down, the Superior Court ruling made it virtually impossible for us to control them.”

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Asked later by a reporter what he specifically objected to, Schabarum would not answer directly, but invited the questioner to “just go read the definition (of high-risk sex) . . . and then make up your own decision as to how ridiculous it would be to try and enforce that.”

Health Director Gates said that the primary reason for the inspections, which under his revised plan would lead to once-a-month visits, was to discourage high-risk sex.

“The focus is not on trying to nail people in the bathhouses,” Gates said, “but to do a good educational job.”

But the unidentified health inspector said that even the stricter inspection program was ineffective.

“Of all of the trips we made . . . sexual activity was observed twice by our people . . . and both of them were oral sex,” the inspector said. “(The patrons) know we’re there, they announce it over the (public address) system.”

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