The opening of new homosexual bathhouses in San Francisco is something that two city supervisors are attempting to facilitate.
Openly Gay Supervisor Rafael Mandelman (who represents the Castro neighborhood, which has a long history of LGBT people living there) submitted a bill last week to dismantle Article 26 of the San Francisco Police Department. Local Fox station KTVU reports that the San Francisco Police Department is responsible for issuing permits for new bathhouses per a provision in the city’s police code.
Mandelman asserts, “We’ve made significant progress in restoring gay bathhouses to San Francisco. It’s encouraging that there are entrepreneurs who are actually trying to open these venues, although it is frustrating that we keep finding new barriers in their way.”
According to Mandelman, some would-be entrepreneurs have been waiting months for the San Francisco Police Department to grant licenses so they can launch homosexual bathhouses in the city, due to Article 26.
Mandela’s administration repealed the ban on gay bathouses. This ordinance would also repeal laws from the 1980s AIDS epidemic that prohibited locked doors and required San Francisco bathhouses to maintain a daily register of customers.
Joel Aguero, owner of Castro Baths, said, “Opening a new business in San Francisco is difficult enough. Supervisor Mandelman and his office are removing a significant blocker to the permit process, accelerating the opening of Castro Baths, and supporting the growing community of would-be bathhouse operators and attendees who seek to revive San Francisco’s once-thriving bathhouse culture.”
Before he let gay bathhouses open in LGBTQ+ areas like the Castro and the Tenderloin in 2022, Mandelman had already pushed legislation to remove health code limitations from the 1980s that affected them in 2020.
City supervisor Matt Dorsey, who co-sponsored Mandelman’s ordinance, said, “I’m thankful to Supervisor Mandelman for his leadership in removing outdated barriers to reopen bathhouses in San Francisco. The South of Market neighborhood I represent has a long and storied history with these establishments. With hindsight, we now know that restrictions adopted decades ago at [the] advent of the AIDS crisis likely deprived at-risk communities of sex-positive spaces where information about safer sex practices might have saved lives.”
Dorsey, who is also gay and the sole publicly HIV-positive supervisor in San Francisco, made the comment, “It’s past time for anti-bathroom restrictions to go.” He made this statement in light of recent advances in HIV prevention and treatment, such as antiretroviral therapy and PrEP.
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