Measure OKd to Make It Easier to Shut Bathhouses

The Assembly on Tuesday passed and sent to Gov. George Deukmejian legislation that would reinforce the power of local governments to close gay bathhouses.

The measure, approved by a 58-0 vote, would put into state law the right of local agencies to declare bathhouses a nuisance and order them shut down if they permit or encourage sexual activity that could lead to the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Although Los Angeles County and San Diego, among others, have already passed ordinances to regulate the bathhouses, the measure the Assembly approved Tuesday would give local agencies a backstop if they are challenged in court.

A spokeswoman for Deukmejian said the governor has no position on the bill.

Assemblyman Bill Bradley (R-San Marcos), the measure’s author, said the bill would give local governments “one more tool” in their fight to regulate bathhouses, which many health researchers believe add to the spread of AIDS by encouraging unsafe sex among strangers.

“Unlike the proposed regulations some counties are adopting, where they require open, well lit booths and no X-rated films, this bill deals strictly with the federal definition of a facility that would be conducive to the transmittal of AIDS,” Bradley said. “That’s the key to it.”

The bill defines as a nuisance to be abated every bathhouse “which as a primary activity encourages or permits conduct that . . . can transmit AIDS.”

Under the bill, a bathhouse could include a spa, whirlpool, communal bath, sauna, steam bath, mineral bath, mud bath or swimming pool, the bill says.

Although the measure was approved without debate or dissenting votes, a San Diego lawyer who has challenged the city’s bathhouse ordinance described the bill in an interview as an unwarranted infringement of individual rights.

“I have a concern whenever the government starts meddling in that rather touchy area of telling people whether they can or cannot have sex in private,” said attorney Tom Homann, who represents four San Diego bathhouses. “This bill strikes me as just about passing over the line into that area where the government has no business regulating people’s lives.”

High Percentages

Homann said studies showing that high percentages of AIDS victims frequented gay bathhouses do not prove that the bathhouses themselves encourage the spread of the deadly disease.

“It’s ludicrous to say that the place where you have sex causes the disease,” Homann said. “It’s what you do, not where you do it.”

San Diego’s ordinance was patterned after one approved in January by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, which prohibits anal or vaginal intercourse and oral copulation at bathhouses. The regulations also limit private rooms to one person at a time.

The Los Angeles County ordinance is being challenged by two bathhouses that Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner has threatened to shut down for violations of the county ban.