SF supervisors OK repeal of contracting ban

by Cynthia Laird

T he San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved an ordinance that would repeal part of the city’s administrative code relating to its contracting ban with companies headquartered in states that have adopted anti-LGBTQ laws.

The vote was 7-4 to approve the ordinance put forward by District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safaí. A second and final vote is expected next week. Supervisors Shamann Walton (District 10), Connie Chan (D1), Myrna Melgar (D7), and Dean Preston (D5) voted in dissent.

The contracting element is one part of Chapter 12X, as the administrative code is known. It also bans city-funded travel to states that have adopted anti-LGBTQ laws and has been amended over the years to include states with restrictions on abortion and voting rights laws. The list of prohibited states now numbers 30.

A separate legislative proposal by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman would repeal Chapter 12X in its entirety. Mandelman’s proposal has yet to be heard by the supervisors in committee.

Safaí proposed ending the contracting ban because it prevented companies in those banned states from bidding on construction projects that could result in a better deal for the city, as the Bay Area Reporter previously reported. But advocates for LGBTQ-, minority-, and women-owned small businesses had opposed removing the contracting provisions from Chapter 12X. The executive committee of the San Francisco Labor

Council adopted a resolution February 27 in support of keeping it in place.

During the meeting, Safaí asked his colleagues for support, noting he had the item continued for two weeks so that he could meet with small business leaders who opposed the plan.

“I’m committed to working with them in a working group,” he said, adding that removing the contracting provision would lead to increased competition and lower prices, but would not reduce the city’s commitment to equality.

Walton, who was against the ordinance in committee, said he remained opposed, in part because he did not know what the effects would be on local subcontractors.

Mandelman asked to be added as a co-sponsor to Safaí’s ordinance.

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In Mumbai and New Delhi, I learned about the city’s LGBTQ art scene and history with gay art historian Aditya Ruia, the owner of Bombay Art Gallery. Ruia also leads an LGBTQ art tour guide in Mumbai. On one of my memorable nights in Mumbai I randomly toured Colaba’s Art Deco architecture, art galleries, and boutiques with filmmaker Faraz Arif Ansari.

In New Delhi, Serene Journeys’ Saikhom leads guests through about 55 public murals on the Lodhi Art Public Art Tour . Sambhav Dehlavi, the gay owner and tour guide of Purani Dilliwala Iqbal, leads an LGBTQ history tour through the city.

The tour with Dehlavi was one of the most memorable tours I experienced during my trip. One of the sites he showed me was a tomb of a king and his male or transgender lover buried side-by-side. There were many other sites throughout New Delhi where it is suspected that LGBTQ history took place.

India also hosts a number of LGBTQ festivals from Pride celebrations, including Queer Azaadi Mumbai (January/February) and Delhi Pride (last Sunday of November), and the 18-day transgender festival, Koovagam (March/April) south of Tamil Nadu’s capital, Chennai. There are also events, like New Delhi’s Rainbow Lit Fest (December), and film festivals, like Mum-

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Six months later, on May 21, 1979, White’s murder trial resulted in conviction on lesser charges: two counts of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to seven years and eight months in prison – although he could be freed in five years with time off for good behavior. Gays erupted in outrage and a protest at City Hall turned violent by nightfall. In what became known as the White Night Riots, City Hall was pelted with stones and stormed, and numerous police cars at the scene were set ablaze.

Hours later at 1 a.m. in an unauthorized raid, two-dozen police officers massed in the Castro, beat people who happened to be on the street, trashed the Elephant Walk, and shattered its windows and pummeled its patrons. A police captain reportedly told a journalist, “We lost the battle at City Hall. We’re not going to lose the battle here.”

In December 1988, a fire nearly destroyed the building, but in 1996, the landlord reopened the bar as Harvey’s, in memory of the slain supervisor. It was filled with historical LGBTQ+ memorabilia and photographs like a bai’s KASHISH Mumbai International Queer Film Festival (June).

Food, beer, and wine enough with groups to vote on the item Tuesday.

Microbreweries are all the rage in India. Pune is the birthplace of India’s microbrewery scene. In 2020 there were 12 craft breweries in the city and many more throughout India. My girlfriend and I were thrilled to discover the craft breweries that served excellent beers with delicious bar food. We barhopped through Pune and Mumbai, stopping at Effingut Brewery, Independence Brewing Company, and Toit Brewery in Pune, and Doolally Taproom and Drifters Tap Station in Mumbai.

Nashik is the birthplace of India’s emerging wine industry. India’s wine country boasts more than 30 wineries. Nashik was inspired by, and has roots in, California’s wine country, but it won’t be mistaken for California’s Napa Valley or Sonoma County.

Milk campaign poster, one of Sylvester’s gold records, and a pair of Greg Louganis’ Speedos – and was campily called the gay Hard Rock Cafe.

With the HIV/AIDS epidemic at its height, the gay bar had transformed from a sanctuary of liberation and pleasure into a gathering space that accommodated community support, fundraising, and memorials. In our bars, drag queens performed to raise funds, community groups came together to support each other and the cause, and we gathered to mourn the dead.

October 6, 1989, was AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power’s National Day of Action. The ACT UP/San Francisco chapter held a rally and march that stopped for speeches at the Burton Federal Building, City Hall, and the U.S. Mint. The overwhelming police presence forcefully harassed marchers along the way, strictly enforcing traffic codes against marchers who strayed into the street or crossed streets illegally by jaywalking or against red lights. When the march, involving almost 500 people, ended in a die-in and sit-down protest closing Castro Street, nearly 200 police officers in riot gear converged on the Castro and in formation mowed down and beat anyone along the block and again stormed the bar at the corner of Castro and 18th streets.

Nearly a quarter century since the first grapes were planted at Sula Vineyards in 1996, to its first bottle crafted and corked in 1999, producing quality Indian wine is still a work in progress.

Sula Vineyards was founded by former Bay Area resident Rajeev Samant, who transformed his family’s table grape farm in 1996 into a winery with the help of his friend and Sonoma winemaker Kerry Damskey

During the few days that we hung out with my girlfriend’s cousins on her mother’s side of the family in Nashik, we went to Sula and visited York Winery. However, the best Indian wine we discovered was at a bar in Fort Kochi, produced by Big Banyan Vineyard in Bengaluru. It gave us a glimpse of the possibility that India could one day produce Californiaquality wine.

Kochi, Kerala is where I got my fill of seafood. On the shores of the Ara-

The brutal police response was known as “The Castro Sweep.”

Rite of passage

For every LGBTQ+ person who comes out, gay bars are a rite of passage – it’s a personal transformation from innocence to experience, from shame to pride, from despair to joy, from isolation to community. Everyone remembers their first time: the hesitation and pacing outside, and the moment when you could summon the courage to dart in without anyone seeing you, and you entered a fantasy land with vivid colors and people, and music that transported you to find love in the dark corners and dance away the cares of the world until the late hours.

But sadly – and perhaps again a sign of our times and a reminder of our struggle – LGBTQ bars and clubs are now a potential site of murder and a target of irrational hatred. Any gathering place for LGBTQ+ people today can become another Pulse Nightclub or Club Q as the right wing supremacist backlash continues to grow in vitriol and action.

As the Bay Area Reporter recently reported Harvey’s suffered from chronic problems in the neighborhood exacerbated by the COVID shutdown, the resulting drop in foot traffic and bian Sea the port town is known for its Chinese fishing nets, beaches, and backwaters traversed by boat to see the wildlife.

Where to eat

We cautiously ate our way through India. We took recommendations from friends and looked for modern eateries that we would expect to see back home and places that looked clean. Some of our favorite restaurants included:

Mumbai: The Birdsong Cafe, a charming organic eatery tucked away on a narrow street in Bandra West, and Loya at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel and Jimmy Boy, a local Parsi restaurant that Ansari introduced me to in Colaba, Mumbai.

Pune: We happened upon the Pan Asian restaurant Malaka Spice and enjoyed cocktails at Culture.

Kochi: In Kochi, we enjoyed freshly caught fish grilled and poached at Fort Cochin around the corner from the Trident Hotel Cochin, where we stayed.

New Delhi: I enjoyed a variety of excellent cuisine in New Delhi. On my last night there I ate a wonderful Italian dinner at lesbian-owned Diva restaurant. Chef Ritu Dalmia, one of the plaintiffs in the 377 case, opened her new restaurant in Greater Kailash-2, an unofficial gayborhood where rainbow flags wave freely outside many businesses. I enjoyed another good Italian dinner at Fat Jar Cafe & Market . LaLiT New Delhi’s Pan Asian restaurant, OKO, offers the flavors of Asia and views of the city at the top of the hotel. The Spice Market - Kitchen attendance, individuals on the street suffering from mental health issues and substance use, changing demographics of the neighborhood, different socializing options for LGBTQ+ people, as well as rising rents and the economic challenges of living in San Francisco. But despite these pressures, there’s nothing as devastating as when we don’t support our own community institutions to keep them alive. If we don’t, who’s to blame? Ourselves or the state of our culture?

What do we lose when a “gay” bar closes? The same can be asked when the last lesbian bar in San Francisco, the Lexington Club, closed in April 2015. Women’s only spaces have always struggled to survive and rarely do. Could this point to the future of the gay bar? Perhaps not if we value what we could lose. It’s hard to prove a negative but we know what we’ve lost when we reflect on our rich history and commit to not forgetting.

Cleve Jones, the founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt (now the AIDS Memorial Quilt), who as a young gay man worked on Milk’s campaign and served as an aide, said in an interview with the B.A.R. when he heard of Harvey’s closing, “Last night was a pretty sad night for me. I went down to Harvey’s, which still in

& Bar in the city’s Southern Park Mall served up spicy tandoori and flavorful dishes.

Where to stay

In Mumbai and New Delhi, I stayed at the LaLiT Hotel . I also stayed at the Grand Hyatt Mumbai, India’s ecofriendly Orchid Hotel, and a vacation rental in Bandra West in Mumbai.

In Pune, we stayed at the Hyatt Pune. In Jaipur, our tour group stayed at the Hotel Arya Niwas, and on our way to Agra we stayed at Hotel Bhanwar Vilas Palace in Karauli, a town in the mountains between Jaipur and Agra.

In Nashik, we stayed at the threestar business focused Ibis Hotel. Getting off India’s beaten path, I stayed as a guest of the LGBTQ Community Ashram, the community center and retreat in Rajpipla owned gay Indian Prince Manvendra Singh Gohil and his husband, DeAndre Richardson. The ashram was being built on the banks of the Karjan River to provide services for the local LGBTQ community and a retreat for queer organizations.

Getting around

My girlfriend and I flew on United Airlines from San Francisco to Mumbai, stopping briefly in Newark airport in New Jersey. We flew Swiss Air from New Delhi through Zurich back to San Francisco for our return trip. We flew on IndiGo, an Indian domestic airline, to destinations within India.

We used Uber to hail rickshaws and cars throughout our trip. t my mind is Elephant Walk, and I can still hear Sylvester’s voice echoing in there, and it makes me very sad. Then I went for a little walk. I walked past the Castro Theatre, which appears to be shuttered. I saw Cafe Flore still empty. So those were three places that were so hugely important to me and to everyone during the time this neighborhood was so important. There’s going to be more to come.

“I have been trying to sound the alarm about the death of the gayborhoods for a few years now, and I don’t see anything productive in blame games but people have to realize this isn’t just a phenomena in San Francisco,” Jones said. “The gayborhoods are going away and with that we risk losing political power, cultural vitality and the ability to provide specialized social services for the most vulnerable.”

Perhaps when a gay bar closes, we may lose more than we realize until after it is gone. t

Michael Yamashita, a gay man, is the owner and publisher of the Bay Area Reporter. This essay originally appeared in News is Out, (http:/newsisout.com) of which the B.A.R. is a collaborating member.

Chan said more time was needed, and Melgar said she didn’t think the board had engaged

But District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen disagreed, telling her colleagues that she was against what she called “performative legislation” like 12X. “I’d rather up - date the legislation to more directly give a leg up to small businesses in contracting,” she said.

Gay state Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) had first authored the city policy when he served on the Board of Supervisors in response to the rollback of LGBTQ rights in other states. He now favors its repeal.

Safaí recently told the B.A.R. that Chapter 12X is a “very cum -

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From page 8 sance is burgeoning.

“COVID impacted the Castro dramatically because it relies on tourism for much of its revenue and COVID stopped tourism dead in its tracks,” Alan said. “This crippled businesses catering to the tourist crowd and even businesses that were hyper-local were impacted. That led to a string of closures.” bersome ordinance.”

“We thought if we are acting as a large purchasing power and a large entity that spends capital, we can influence people on the other end, the supervisor said. “It sent a message if you are not providing equal benefits to LGBT people, not allowing people to vote freely, and not allowing reproductive rights, we don’t want to do business with you, with the hope that

However, citing developments at Flore, soon to be known as Fisch and Flore, inquiries into the shuttered Harvey’s space at Castro and 18th streets, and “a tremendous amount of activity preparing for places to be reopened,” he’s hopeful this summer will bring more vitality to the queerville.

In just the past several days, a Salvadorian restaurant called Los Amigos opened in the former Castro Republic space (2295 Market Street), which would change people’s policies. In fact, we have only changed one since the introduction of 12X as a policy and as a concept.”

The only state to be removed from the city’s banned list has been Massachusetts. The Bay State was delisted in 2021 after it rescinded an anti-abortion law. t had been shuttered for years.

Still, even the confident Alan had to qualify his remarks – things take time.

“We’re in San Francisco,” Alan said. “There’s a lengthy approval process for opening a business.”

Just as COVID was a global problem, dealing with social and economic change is too, Beswick said.

“Economic inequality is increasing more and more,” Beswick said. “Until there’s an economic shift ... we’re chipping around the edges.” t