Laguna Beach’s gays want the since-closed nightspot Boom Boom Room at the Coast Inn, which closed to the public in 2008, marked as a historical location, thus preventing new-ish owner Steven Udvar-Hazy from tearing down the bar and turning it into a parking lot for his new boutique hotel. And San Francisco’s gays want to keep the Castro Country Club — which hosts “more than 30 Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, Co-Dependents Anonymous and similar 12-step meetings a week” — from being put on the market for $1.7 million.
Rikard
I wish I had a more positive opinion of the Boom Boom. My family has visited Laguna Beach since the folks honeymoon over 50 years ago, spending a couple of weeks just blocks from there all my life. As a kid and teen the Boom’s street and stairs to the beach had a creepy pedo vibe. The guys hanging around were leering, drunk, strung out and dangerous. Sure things got a little better in the mid 80’s and the whole town cleaned up, but between the Boom and the drug addict suicide hair stylists I knew in the 70’s and 80’s, negative gay role models influenced me to stay closeted for way too long. Historic and important? Yes, but history is bleak and pitiful too.