Sitting across from Novakowski at IBT's is Ernie Freuler, who hosts the public-access show OutWest. There may be fewer of them, and we may see more folks we think of as 'straight' in the crowd, but I believe gay people will always gather to drink and dance under their rainbow flags." "As long as enough people keep feeling the need for queer communion, America's gay bars will endure. Could the double whammy of mainstreaming and technology mean that gay bars are doomed?"ĭespite her research, however, Thomas decided that the gay bar is not doomed. "Between 20, the number of gay and lesbian bars and clubs in gay-travel-guide publisher Damron's database decreased by 12.5 percent, from 1,605 to 1,405.
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And it's not just that gays are hanging out in straight bars some are eschewing bars altogether and finding partners online or via location-based smart-phone apps like Grindr, Qrushr and Scruff," Thomas wrote. "In 2007, Entrepreneur Magazine put gay bars on its list of businesses facing extinction, along with record stores and pay phones.
1979 PHOENIX GAY BAR SERIES
June Thomas, author of The Gay Bar: Its Riotous Past and Uncertain Future, wrote a six-part series on the history and the future of the gay bar for last year. Today's gay-bar scene includes about a half-dozen places: IBT's, as well as Woody's, New Moon, Brodie's Tavern, Venture-N, and Colors. Novakowski stands behind the club's bar with a cup of coffee in one hand, occasionally putting it down to pour a drink for a daytime patron, or to fold bar towels in preparation for the evening rush.Īt the height of Tucson's gay-bar era-the late-1970s into the mid-'80s-there were about a dozen bars, and Novakowski recalls most of their names: the Graduate, the Venture, Sir James, Hair Tiz, the Joshua Tree/Backdoor, the Stonewall Eagle, Michael's, the Fineline, Rita's, Colette's, Venture, Lucky Pierre's and IBT's.
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More specifically, he's tending a gay bar.Īway from the glare of the summer sun, IBT's on Fourth Avenue offers a dark, cool respite. on a weekday afternoon, and Tom Novakowski is doing what he's done almost every day for the past 40 years-tending bar.