LAPD, Agency Accused of Gay Bar Crackdown

Gay community leaders and bar owners in the Hollywood and Silver Lake areas are complaining about allegedly overzealous bar inspections by the Los Angles Police Department.

At a community meeting with police officials in Silver Lake on Wednesday night, critics said the LAPD and the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control are engaged in a crackdown on gay bars.

Police denied the allegations, and an Alcoholic Beverage Control official said the state recently began making grants to police agencies to spend more time inspecting bar activity statewide.

Nevertheless, Wednesday night’s meeting generated considerable tension, some of it reflecting past decades when harassment of gay establishments was common, police critics say.

Brendan Rome, a bartender at Detour, told of a five-person contingent of police and Alcoholic Beverage Control officials who arrived at his bar on a Saturday night and demanded to see his bar’s licenses.

Rome said officials found no violations, yet during the bar’s busiest time, “I was detained half an hour answering questions. I felt like I was getting interrogated.”

Michael Schwieger, chairman of the California Business and Tavern Guild, a federation of 20 bars that have banded together to fight the alleged harassment, said two recent police visits at his bar cost him $50,000 in business.

“The bar owners are so terrified and frightened, we don’t know what to do,” he said. “For many of us, our life savings, our mortgages, are sunk into our bars.”

Dan Watson, commander of the LAPD’s Central Bureau, denied any harassment.

“We don’t inspect gay bars because they are gay bars,” he said. “We inspect them because of ABC violations.”

Watson pledged a study of police activity at gay bars to determine whether they have been targeted by officers. The gay activists contended that the LAPD policy of evenhandedness has been frequently ignored by street officers.

Alcoholic Beverage Control district administrator Jane McCabe said her agents often work with the LAPD in response to a complaint. She said many complaints, such as those by anonymous callers denied admission to a bar, are not legitimate.

McCabe said the increased police activity against the bars coincides with a dozen $100,000 grants from her agency to police departments statewide.

A gay community group will hold a rally on the issues at 2 p.m. Saturday at Sunset and Santa Monica boulevards.