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By Thomas Shevlin
Friday, July 04, 2008
Hundreds of thousands of tourists came to New York to join the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers celebrating Pride this year, and the New York City Police did everything they could to destroy this experience for us—they managed to close two major dance venues, Pacha and Marquee (which are usually straight clubs), and doing their level best to close Splash, the only large gay dance club left on the West Side.
The police have apparently been staking out the two straight clubs for months, but they chose to close them when they were holding events for Pride. The NYPD also waited for Friday of Pride weekend to raid Splash, closing entry to the club while searching for a violation they could not find, in their attempt to close as many gay venues as possible for pride weekend. They may not be able to chain us altogether and drag us off to jail just for being queer the way they used to, but while we celebrate the 39th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots on Christopher Street in the Village, the police in New York City are still singling out and raiding gay nightlife establishments.
I can say from personal experience that whenever I go to Pacha, I am thoroughly searched by extremely aggressive door security who do everything within the limits of the law to ensure that I am not carrying weapons or drugs.
Ticket prices to get into Pride events in some cases exceed $100, and many of us New Yorkers drop $500 or $1,000 on a big weekend like Pride, while tourists from around the world spend thousands more on events, hotels, restaurants etc., all to enjoy a big celebration in a city that was once known for having a great nightlife.
Despite Pacha giving its complete and total cooperation to the city to prevent drug use, the police used this victimless crime as a pre-text in an effort to send thousands of city tax-payers and tourists home with nothing to show for their trouble. Many of these tourists will not come back. The number of jobs lost due to this destructive activity over the years has to be in the thousands if not tens-of thousands, and lost tax revenue in the millions.
The question for me is why the police waited for Pride to close two straight clubs. Could Pride possibly be a bigger moneymaker for them than, for example, New Year’s or Halloween? Clearly not. If the police cared about these clubs’ typically straight patrons using drugs, why would they wait for a weekend when all these patrons would not even be there?
It reminds me of the night two years ago when the police swept through Chelsea closing practically every gay bar between 14th and 23rd streets. The claim then was that it had something to do with drugs, but since no one goes to a martini bar to do drugs, the assertion was absurd.
This is pure homophobia, in my view. But even if there is no homophobia behind it at all, these raids are still an attack on our community and way of life.
It is no accident that the LGBT rights movement began at a nightlife establishment. Unlike the African-American civil-rights movement, we did not have churches and family connections to form around. In coming out, we mostly had to seek out total strangers in order to finally feel like we weren’t different, like we weren’t the freaks that society and in many cases our families told us we were. Without these bars and nightclubs, we might never have found the people who initially guided us, showed us the way to be what we are, and be proud, and safe, and live upstanding lives.
There can be no attack on LGBT nightlife that does not attack our community, because our nightlife is at the heart of our community.
We need to stand up now and fight for what nightlife is left in our community. People moving into Chelsea, Hells Kitchen and the Village need to understand that these were centers of nightlife—especially LGBT nightlife—long before they arrived.
The city and police need to understand that the majority of us who choose to live in these neighborhoods—and bear the burden of city taxes and rents—do so because we want the vibrant nightlife these neighborhoods used to represent. It is time for the city to know that is not okay to use our tax dollars to subsidize the primary source of entertainment for many straight people who like watching baseball and other sports, while simultaneously using our tax dollars to destroy the major form of entertainment for many of us.
It is time for our community to stand up against the constant, senseless, destructive harassment of our nightlife, while there is still something left to save.
Thomas Shevlin, an economist, portfolio manager, and former U.S. Treasury diplomat, is a member of the Board of the Stonewall Democrats of New York City, and can be reached at shevmonster@hotmail.com.
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