Gay bar in tucson az

By Mari Herreras. 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. 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.

Could the double whammy of mainstreaming and technology mean that gay bars are doomed? Despite her research, however, Thomas decided that the gay bar is not doomed. There may be fewer of them, and we may see more folks we think of as 'straight' in the crowd, but I bar gay people will always gather to drink and dance under their rainbow flags.

Gay IBT's with Freuler, we make the same assessment as Thomas: For young gays and lesbians, that first gay-bar experience is still important. It's great that we feel more comfortable in straight bars, but no matter what, it's not the same," Freuler says. T hat brings us to the Graduate, an establishment that once stood at 23 W.

University Blvd. Novakowski tended bar there for 10 years, from to tucson, and returned in when the owners decided to get out of the business and wanted someone familiar to help run the bar during its last months. Of all the bars he's worked at or patronized, Novakowski says the Graduate was his favorite, because of the varied clientele.

They drank together and talked together. It's the gay version of the Buffet. Places like the Graduate allowed gays and lesbians to gather in an atmosphere free of fear or judgment. Novakowski says he and his friends didn't have to worry when they went out. Freuler is the person who introduced me to Novakowski, with whom he worked as a bartender at IBT's.

Freuler and his late partner, Bert Hoop, also worked at other gay bars in Tucson, including the Graduate. It did well. Back in the s and '50s, he says, gay bars were small establishments that allowed people to live separate lives by necessity. You had to go out and find a landlord who was compassionate and didn't care.

We didn't have a lot of resources, and we learned how to take care of each other.

Community Over Cocktails

Freuler recalls a person calling him when he was working at IBT's to let him know that Freuler's house was on fire. Freuler insisted the caller was joking, so the caller told Freuler to go outside and look toward his house. Freuler did—and saw the smoke. That night, IBT's had a drag show on its schedule, but everyone knew that Freuler and his partner had lost everything in the fire.

I n the mids, when patrons of Tucson's gay bars saw uniformed police officers standing in bar parking lots and doorways, the presence wasn't at first well-received. The history of police gay-bar raids was part of the issue; after all, this was less than a decade after New York City's Stonewall riots, in Junewhen police came to the Stonewall Inn with clubs—only to be greeted by a crowd of gay youths, transvestites, drag queens and others who decided they weren't going to take it anymore.