Are Gay Bathhouses Set to Return to San Francisco?

The efforts of one San Francisco supervisor to return legality to bathhouses might yield results.

"San Francisco was once famous for gay bathhouses like Ritch Street Health Club, the Barracks, and Bulldog Baths," the San Francisco Standard recalled. "These operated in a legal gray area, with authorities generally turning a blind eye but periodically conducting raids for 'lewd conduct.'"

"In the 1980s, fears over the role the venues played in the spread of HIV/AIDS led to a court order that made it nearly impossible for the businesses to survive," the Standard added, with the paradoxical result that no bathhouses "have operated within city limits since 1987, even as an uber-kinky festival with its own waterworks takes place annually on Folsom Street."

That may change. "Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, a gay man who represents the Castro, has been on a multi-year crusade to get bathhouses steaming again," the Standard said. "It's been a history lesson on how outdated mores have wormed their way into a complex bureaucracy."

It's not that San Francisco doesn't have sex clubs. The Standard took note of Eros, an establishment in the Tenderloin that "features a glory-hole alley, video play areas, and a handful of sex slings..." But what such businesses lack are pools and saunas, in addition to play spaces and private rooms.

City officials have pondered allowing bathhouses to return to the city for more than a decade, but Mandelman is not discouraged.

"We're gonna try to make these happen," the Standard quoted the city supervisor saying. "Or at least ensure that the city is not the barrier to this happening."

Mandelman's "first try was unwinding restrictions on the operation of gay bathhouses in the city's health code, a legacy of the AIDS crisis," the writeup recounted. "He followed that by changing the planning code to allow bathhouses and sex clubs to operate in a larger swath of the city."

In his latest foray, the city supervisor "introduced legislation Tuesday [Pct. 8] that would repeal Article 26 of the police code, which outlines standards around sanitation but also requires businesses to keep a registry of all patrons and prohibits services from being offered behind locked doors."

"The hope is to get the law passed by the end of the year," the Standard went on to say, before noting that the idea has broad support from the city's institutions.

"The Department of Public Health was already responsible for much of the Article 26 oversight," the Standard detailed, "and a stretched police department was happy to get it off its plate."

Would-be entrepreneurs are just waiting for their chance.

Joel Aguero – "a former employee of The Standard," the outlet said – praised Supervisor Mandelman's efforts, saying that the city official is working to "[remove] a significant blocker to the permit process," which could help Aguero realize his dream of opening a facility he would call Castro Baths.

Nathan Diesel spoke about the sort of business he would like to run, and pointed out that nearby Berkeley allowed bathhouses.

"In the European model, you can order apple pie and a sandwich and hang out," Diesel pointed out. "It's a completely different vibe."

Moreover, he added, "The fact that we have a bathhouse across the Bay means we have business that's actively leaving San Francisco."