Gay Men’s Sex Club Closes, Citing Exhausting Fight With City

Saying that they are emotionally and financially exhausted with nothing left to fight for, the owners of a controversial east Hollywood gay men’s sex club have surrendered, closing their business and ending a contentious chapter at City Hall.

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who had fought to keep open the so-called sexual encounter club in her district, announced the owners’ decision Friday after reiterating that she would not put her colleagues through any more political discomfort on the issue.

The Barracks sparked a politically sensitive debate in City Hall, where the bare minimum of council members voted with Goldberg to grant a zoning variance allowing it to remain open and others vehemently opposed it. While some council members attempted to frame the controversy as solely a land-use and zoning matter, others saw the business as an inappropriate club in an inappropriate location.

Mayor Richard Riordan last week vetoed the council’s decision, which would have let the club remain open if its owners met more than two dozen conditions. Although the council could have overridden the mayor with 10 votes, Goldberg acknowledged that she didn’t have the support.

The Barracks was on a commercial strip of Santa Monica Boulevard within 500 feet of apartments, which is against the city’s zoning laws. Neighbors had complained bitterly about the club, saying that it was unsuitable and caused parking, traffic and other problems.

But a letter from Roger Jamil, an owner of the Barracks, that Goldberg read said the zoning issues have far greater implications.

“Does the gay community have a voice in our city/democratic process--outside District 13?” Jamil wrote. “We wonder.”

Further, he said, there are “dangerous extremists that view these scenarios as an opportunity to ‘act out’ blatant (and sometimes violent) hatred towards homosexuals.”

He said that customers were afraid to patronize the club and that cashiers received death threats the night of Riordan’s decision to veto the council action.

“We are emotionally and financially exhausted,” Jamil wrote. “And there is nothing left to fight for or rescue. . . . How do we place a dollar value on our peace of mind and . . . safety and security?”

Goldberg said that members of the gay community have expressed dissatisfaction with the way the issue was handled. And she said her mail about the Barracks was “totally and completely” homophobic, sparked by sensationalized media coverage.

But members of the Rampart Rangers/East Hollywood Neighborhood Watch strenuously objected to suggestions that their opposition to the club’s location stemmed from disapproval of homosexuality.

“We are not homophobic,” said Elaine Saldivar, a group leader. “This was never about gays. This was about a law that wasn’t being enforced.”

Goldberg, however, isn’t convinced.

She said the neighbors who objected were more upset by the idea of the sex club than by actual problems it caused.

In fact, the club had been open illegally since January, and Goldberg said she hadn’t received any complaints. It was only after the owners came forward, seeking a zoning exemption to make the club legal, that the community objected, she said.

“This was not an issue about whether you like or dislike sex clubs,” Goldberg said. “Because if you took a vote, I’d bet most people wouldn’t like them. I don’t like them.”

But the club’s owners, attorneys and consultants, who said they spent about $25,000 to fight the zoning law, contend that they weren’t treated equally, especially by Riordan.

“Had the mayor taken the time to contact us and get our perspective, we would have been more respectful of his decision,” Jamil said in his letter to Goldberg.

Riordan’s top aides said it would have been unusual for the mayor to contact the owners, particularly because he reviewed the entire case history with all the documents from zoning board hearings and committee meetings. The mayor’s unusual veto was based on that historical record and the zoning law, they said.

Riordan, who made his veto announcement to a group of San Fernando Valley business leaders, said he believed the city needed to be consistent in land-use matters, referring to an Orthodox synagogue in Hancock Park that was recently denied a similar zoning exemption.