News
2006-08-18
Fabled Laguna
Beach gay bar gets reprieve
Boom Boom Room
will keep booming
Fabled gay bar
the Boom Boom Room in Laguna Beach, Calif., where the
Fabled gay bar
the Boom Boom Room in Laguna Beach, Calif., where the
likes of Rock Hudson, Paul Lynde, and Bette Midler once
partied, has been saved from closure, at least for
now. After it was purchased by a Beverly Hills
businessman last year, the infamous Boom Boom Room was
slated to close on September 4 to make way for an
upscale hotel and restaurant on the South Coast
Highway property.
But Patrick
O'Laughlin and James Marchese, co-owners of the Boom
Boom Room and the adjacent Coast Inn, came to terms with
building owner Steven Udvar-Hazy on Wednesday to
extend the bar's lease for one more year. "It's like
Christmas in August," Fred Karger, who founded the
group SAVE the BOOM!!! said in a statement. "This is the
best possible news, and we are so grateful to Mr. Hazy
for giving the oldest gay bar in the Western United
States new life."
Karger, a retired
Republican political consultant and former actor,
gathered close to 5,000 signatures to persuade the city
and new owner to keep the bar open. "It's a
symbol for us.... This is history, and you don't erase
history without a fight," Karger recently told the
Los Angeles Times. "This is a battle for
the heart and soul of gay life here."
O'Loughlin and
Marchese bought the 24-room Coast Inn and the adjoining
Boom Boom Room property for $2 million in 2000 but struggled
to make it work as Laguna Beach's gay population
dwindled. "At the time the demographics were there to
support the place, but our experience shows that the
demographics have shifted," O'Loughlin told the
Times. "I saw a huge decline in the gay
population—maybe 50%—and you didn't get more
gays in to replenish it. This has become a place where
the super-rich live."
O'Loughlin and
Marchese sold the property last year for about $10 million
to a group of investors who resold it a few months later for
nearly $13 million to Udvar-Hazy, a Beverly Hills
airplane-leasing mogul. Asked if there were any way he
would keep the bar open after that, Udvar-Hazy seemed
doubtful. "That's a hard question," he said. "A new
hotel would be quite upscale, and I'm not sure from a
development point of view that it is compatible with
the Boom Boom Room."
But Karger is
committed to saving "the Boom." "We look forward to
keeping our SAVE the BOOM!!! campaign alive and hope during
the next 12 months we can convince [Udvar-Hazy] that these
landmark businesses should remain a vital part of
Laguna Beach," he said. "This fight is essential
to the gay community that live in and visit
Laguna Beach. The historic Coast Inn and Boom Boom
Room represent our past and our future." (The
Advocate)
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