'We were popular then,' she quips with a laugh. She went back to The Club the next night. She was booked for 'lewd and lascivious conduct,' but luckily her case was dismissed. “Our lives could have been ruined,' says Jill McCall, a lesbian who was arrested at The Club in 1966 while celebrating with friends. Raids were frequent, and patrons faced jail time and public humiliation when their name, occupation, and address appeared in newspapers the next day. Visiting these bars was a high-risk activity.
During this time, when homosexuality was criminalized and it was even against the law for two men to dance together, the bars provided a meeting place for LGBTQ people who were otherwise isolated. The post-World War II era heralded the opening of many more bars, catering to the independent men and women who had moved to the bustling port city for military jobs. The earliest example of a gay bar in San Diego came in the 1957, when straight ally Lou Arko bought the popular lunch club of the 1930's, the Brass Rail, and extended it into a meeting spot for gay people at night. Directed and produced by Paul Detwiler, the film has been released on the city's PBS station, KPBS.
The new documentary San Diego's Gay Bar History surveys some of the 135 bars that have existed in the city and chronicles the various aspects of the LGBTQ community that have grown within them.
