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Property prices and the profit motive are not a new consideration in gay bars.”Īs well as economics, cultural and demographic shifts mean that the mainstream is less prejudiced than it used to be, leaving some LGBT people happy to socialise in mixed environments or via the internet and mobile apps. “Pubs and bars have been very important in shaping ideas of community and identity, but they’ve rarely been motivated by purely altruistic impulses. “We shouldn’t just give in to the market, but nor can we hang on to a model of gay bars from the 90s, because that might not be what we need now,” says Matt Cook, senior lecturer in history and gender studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, and author of A Gay History of Britain. There’s more money in property than having gays in there drinking.”īut insisting that gay bars are good and property development bad might be oversimplifying things. “I think they’re trying to do what they did in New York and homogenise the tourist centre. “It’s making things impossible for independent businesses,” says Chris Amos, whose venue Manbar on Charing Cross Road closed recently following a dispute over noise levels. “It’s independent venues versus big business.” Planning procedures often privilege big corporate ventures, and give weight to residential concerns such as noise levels, even if these relate to new homes built in long-established entertainment districts. “It’s not a homophobic issue,” Joannou says. The Royal Vauxhall Tavern has been bought by a property developer whose plans remain unclear. But the owner can put a chain restaurant and a couple of floors of flats in there and make a lot more money.” Westminster council is deciding whether to approve planning permission for just such a scheme, while Camden council considers another application that would convert the upper bar of The Black Cap – where drag acts such as Danny La Rue and Hinge and Bracket started their careers – into flats. “Take The Yard in Soho – a unique space with such character. “Every part of London has a pound sign on it now,” says Joannou. Now the soaring London property market makes many sites vulnerable to commercial and residential redevelopment when leases end.
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Some were bought by corporate breweries that turned them into straight venues. The commercial gay bar and pub sector boomed in the 1990s.
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“It’s like losing the Asian community from Brick Lane.” The sense of Soho as a gay village or Vauxhall as a gay village is going,” he says.
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And the more places that are threatened, the harder it is to maintain community – especially when whole locations are being lost. Losing four or five in the space of a year is a big impact. For most people, it’s the first time they’ve been surrounded by LGBT people.”Ĭliff Joannou, who edits London gay listings magazine QX, estimates that 25% of LGBT venues have closed in the capital since the recession. “Young people look to these as safe places where they can feel accepted, especially if they’ve been rejected by their families. He sees it as a worrying development because bars and clubs aren’t just places to party but crucial sites of community and belonging. “There does seem to be a closure epidemic at the moment,” says Tony Butchart-Kelly of the Albert Kennedy Trust, a charity that works with at-risk LGBT youth. The future of four or five more hangs in the balance, and outside London, cities such as Brighton and Manchester are also suffering. In the capital alone, more than a dozen spaces have closed, from Vauxhall superclub Area in south London, to local pubs north of the river Thames, to lesbian institution Candy Bar in Soho and Madame Jojo’s, home to many queer nights. But the past couple of years have been notably hard for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) venues in the UK. Pubs, bars and clubs spring up in one area, thrive for a while and then fade away, only to pop up somewhere else. H istorically, the gay scene has been a moveable feast.