Out NYC, aka The Out Hotel, in New York City‘s Hell’s Kitchen, has been sold to Merchants Hospitality, who signed a $40 million contract to take over the lease. They are expected to change the name and drop the gay angle, due to falling revenue.
Related: Donald Trump Promises To Protect The LGBTQ Community, Twitter Reacts
When it opened, co-owners, and former lovers, Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, called it New York’s first gay hotel – which seems to be an overstatement – and a “straight-friendly urban resort.”
Turns out it’s hard to keep a hotel profitable when you cater specifically to the gay community, especially if you call them “cheap” and “entitled,” while buddying up to antigay politicians in the process.
Reisner told New York magazine:
Gays are cheap. They’re frugal; gays are frugal. Let me retract that…gays are entitled…Do you know how challenging it is to make a penny off a gay person? I’m gay, I don’t pay cover. I’m gay, where’s my comp drink?
Reisner and Weiderpass hosted a private dinner for Ted Cruz in 2015 during his run for the 2016 Republican Party nomination for president.
Reisner tried to play off the significance of the event at first, telling New York magazine, “There were no checks given. It was nothing like that.”
Related: Gay Republican Owns Ted Cruz During ABC Town Hall
Then The New York Times learned that Reisner had written a personal check to the Cruz campaign of $2,700, the maximum allowed by law, right around the time of the dinner. Reisner asked for the money back when the story broke, which he says was returned. He also said he had no intention of donating to politicians “who aren’t in support of L.G.B.T. issues.”
This lead to boycotts, and even Weiderpass getting kicked out of a Fire Island bar.
Weiderpass and Reisner also hosted a fundraiser for antigay Tea Partier Sen. Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, helping him raise over $10,500 in April 2015.
It is probably safe to say that not too many gay people will be shedding tears for Weiderpass and Reisner over this news that their business has not succeeded.
DCguy
Anybody remember when this story broke that the Log Cabiners were coming in here and frantically screaming that boycotts don’t work and that the hotel was profitable and doing fine?
See Log Cabiners, this is another reason people don’t take you seriously, you would rather lie about things that are easy to disprove. The hotel was damaged by the boycott, never drew a profit after and now has been unloaded just a year after the boycott was announced and multiple events pulled out of the venue.
Masc Pride
It’s hard to keep anything profitable when catering to the gay community, even without the mistakes these guys made. Logo’s kept out of the red by claiming to be an LGBT channel while showing predominantly hetero programming. According to a poll–a poll conducted by Logo, of course–gays aren’t really interested in gay entertainment anymore. Gay bars and nightclubs that have been around for decades are shutting down left and right, so it was rather silly to think a likely overpriced gay hotel would work.
However, I think Reisner’s claim that it’s hard to make money when catering to gays is probably mostly true. The population is just too small, and once gays know there’s a place that caters to them, they will go just to act like total divas that are impossible to please.
Kangol
@DCguy: If the owner hadn’t been a sleaze cozying up to hom0phobes and had a sense of how to draw gay tourists and locals, the hotel might have done much better. Look at gay venues in Provincetown; you have to fight to find lodgings in them. New York is a gay tourist mecca (even though it’s steadily destroying so much of what made gay life in NYC so wonderful), but these creeps running the hotel put their bad politics and greed before everything else, and this is the result. Couldn’t have happened to a worse pair!
DCguy
@Masc Pride:
And here are the self haters defending the guy. There are many many businesses that cater to the lgbt community that don’t go under. Your comment is full of self hate. “Gays will act like divas, be impossible to please, etc… That must be why places like Provincetown, Fire Island, Rehoboth Beach etc… have no businesses there that cater to gay people. Oh wait, ooops, all of them do!
Masc Pride
@DCguy: No one’s defending anyone. You’re more focused on who made the claim rather than the claim itself. If Ian Reisner said 2 + 2 = 4, I’m sure you’d be ready to dispute that as well. I agreed only with what Reisner said about how hard it is to run a gay business. He may not be an upstanding person, but it is hard to cater to a small community with big demands.
Masc Pride
I also never stated that it’s impossible for a gay business to survive. Provincetown and Fire Island won’t suffer but so much because they have a well-known historical standing. The fact that you would reference these areas when I was clearly discussing this gay hotel and bar/club establishments just shows your intellectual dishonesty. I know several gay nightlife promoters that claim “the scene” is on life support and that guys expect a lot but don’t want to pay for anything because they’d rather be at home on Grindr for free. The impact sites and apps have had on a lot of gay establishments and events is well-documented, not just my opinion.
Alistair Wiseman
@Masc Pride:
Good luck. You are using facts and logic on someone who uses emotion.
Stache
@Masc Pride: “The combined buying power of U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults rose about 3.7 percent to $917 billion last year, rivaling the disposable income of other American minority groups, according to an annual analysis.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-20/lgbt-purchasing-power-near-1-trillion-rivals-other-minorities
Masc Pride
@Stache: No. You’re trying arguing something totally different as well. But if only a portion of all that buying power was actually going to gay businesses…
DCguy
@Alistair Wiseman:
Awwww, how cute, the two people who defend bigots are talking. I see a studio apartment in your future!
slinky49
I think, “Do you know how challenging it is to make a penny off a gay person?” pretty much sums up their definition of “gay community”, and it is one I have found to be shared by many a “gay business” owner.
Stache
@Masc Pride: What’s different? The article just stated that gay buying power actually rose. Plus, they have more disposable income. Despite it’s size the business community is lining up to cater to them now. You’re assuming based on flimsy facts like the Logo line-up that gays don’t support gay businesses.
Hotels in NY are practically guaranteed money makers. It’s really hard to fuck that up.
Stache
@slinky49: About as easy as Reisner’s cover story for the dead RB kid in his bathtub I’d imagine.
Brian
When you identify as gay, you don’t need to impress a female date. You don’t need to spend big on drinks or food to woo her. Among men, you’re among kindred spirits and a democracy of conduct where one man might shout a group and then it goes around in turn.
Heterosexual wooing is fundamentally a form of extortion where the woman tests how much her man is prepared to fork out for her. Count your blessings that you don’t need to go through that.
Kangol
@Stache: Exactly! Even bed bug-filled crapholes make money in NYC these days. These self-loathing hom0phobic creeps insulted their target audience, courted anti-gay politicians, had a young gay man just happen to end up dead in their bathroom, and in the case of Reisner, made r@cist statements on TV. And they blame gay people because their business failed! What buffoons!
Masc Pride
@Stache: No. You’re having a totally different conversation. Go back and read my original comment. You’ve clearly misunderstood it all. What I said about Logo was also very different from what I said about bars and clubs. Comprehend BEFORE replying.
Stache
@Masc Pride: I get your point. Gays are too small in numbers and too fickle.
Besides the article I personally know a few people that have become very wealthy off gay people. Bar owner, party promoter, and a gay tour operator.
Masc Pride
@Stache: Yes, those were parts of what I was saying. A much bigger challenge is that gays want to be mainstream these days, and anything gay-oriented has taken a hard hit as a result. LGBT buying power doesn’t mean the money is going to gay businesses, so IDK why you brought that up. I never claimed that the LGBT community is poor.
I also didn’t claim it’s impossible for gay bars, clubs, promoters, etc. to turn a profit. I said it’s hard, and it’s gotten harder due to gay sites/apps and gay being more mainstream. A lot of gay clubs and bars are struggling to bring in even half the crowds they used to see just 10 years ago. The people you know are lucky, particularly if they’re truly “wealthy” because of the gay scene as it exists today.
jjose712
@Masc Pride: No, it’s not, and in fact a lot of straight business owners know that making business with gays is good for them.
The problem here (apart of them being terrible at public relationships) it’s that right now there are a lot of hotels that are gay friendly.
And yes, that’s the same reason a lot of gay clubs struggle (specially the ones who are very expensive), there are a lot of “straight” clubs that want gay clientele.
Gay tour operators for example have a big advantage over hotels and bars, they cater specific necesities. For a gay person could be dangerous to travel to certain parts of the world and they would prefer someone who is in touch with those necesities, something your average tour operator whose speciality are hetero families obviously doesn’t know