The Boom Closes

Daniel Gonzales

September 4th, 2007

What 365gay.com calls the longest running gay club in the country closed last night. The Boom Boom Room was the last gay nightspot in Laguna Beach, the final victim in a wildly out of control gentrification process the gay community helped start there. If I still lived in So Cal I would have been there.

Can we acknowledge cities are dynamic entities, stop pretending Laguna is the gay center of Orange County now and maybe get to work building a new community someplace viable?

I’m sure there are other natives reading this site who will want to discuss.

Jim Burroway

September 4th, 2007

I’m glad I was able to enjoy a drink or two at the Boom last June.

Christopherâ„¢

September 5th, 2007

I was invited to go to the Boom on Labor Day, but I knew it likely would have been way too crowded, so I passed. I had fun the last time I was there, but that was 10 years ago. Seems like an eternity now.

I said this shortly after I moved to Los Angeles 13 years ago, and I’ll say it now… L.A. doesn’t have a gay community so much as it has a gay culture. There are multiple gay communities within the area, mainly due to geography, but also to interest. West Hollywood used to be Gay Ground Zero, but with rising rents and a much higher cost of living, combined with a much less community feel to the establishments there (which seem more primed for gay tourists that gay locals), the allure of WeHo has worn off for many people. (The departure of MCC West Hollywood was the final nail in the coffin on that score, as far as I’m concerned.) A lot of friends of mine from that area have moved to other places, either to purchase a condo on the other side of the hill in Studio City, or to move to Long Beach, which is much less expensive.

In fact, because of greater gay visibility and acceptance in society over the past 15 years, there isn’t such a need to live in a gay “ghetto” anymore. My gay friends live everywhere, from Pasadena to Orange County… there really isn’t a central locale that is representative of the GLBT community, if there ever was.

Besides what’s left of WeHo, you have Long Beach, which is really starting to pick up these days; Silverlake/Echo Park, which traditionally has attracted the more alternative crowd; the West Adams district, which GLBT people of color are only beginning to transform (come back in 5 years and it will be a happening place); and North Hollywood, which is the red-headed stepchild that gets no attention, but has plenty of GLBT establishments to serve the many gays and lesbians in the Burbank/NoHo/Toluca Lake/Universal City area.

Laguna Beach is fading like WeHo, so I’m not sure if there is any strong gay district in the OC anymore… it seems everyone is diffused throughout the county. But I’m a mid-city L.A. person speaking, so I recognize I have an outsider’s perspective on that.

Point is, there is no one area that effectively serves the gay communities in the L.A. region, and there never has been. It’s just that the traditional gay areas are become noticeably less gay as the years go by.

cowboy

September 5th, 2007

Quite by accident I drove past this establishment while on a business trip to La Jolla. After I had finished my business I took an extra few days off from work and told my family I was still going to stay in blissfully warm Southern California. I retraced my previous PCH trek and found the Boom-Boom on a Sunday afternoon. It was one of the friendliest gay bars I have visited. I have the fondest memories about a nearby little park bench that overlooked the beach and the ocean. This part of Laguna Beach will always have a spot in my heart…in spite of getting a $60 parking ticket there that day.

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