Do We Need More Black Gay Bars ? Call in 516-387-1815

Call in 516-387-1815

The Catch was clearly in decline for many years. The club’s owner, Jewel Thais-Williams, opens the massive multiroom venue only for special events, most of which are run by promoters who have no affiliation with the black gay community.

Without a stand-alone venue aimed at them, and with L.A.’s neighborhoods becoming more diverse — thus diluting black enclaves — some gay black men are fighting for their right to party. But others are wondering if, in today's more integrated culture, there's a need for black gay bars — or any gay bars targeting a particular ethnicity.

As black men respond to the Catch's closure by migrating to West Hollywood as an alternative, some feel that the lily-white area offers little hope for black men looking for fun.

“We have to try to make ourselves believe that we’re wanted there and that we’re supported there, when it really is not that,” says Greg Wilson, deputy director at Realistic Education in Action Coalition to Foster Health, or Reach L.A., a nonprofit that coordinates HIV services and wellness programs for LGBTQ youth of color.

Reach L.A. also stages the wildly popular Ovahness Ball, an annual ballroom competition with mostly black performers. Wilson says there are “many ways” in which bars in Boystown, the gay-friendly stretch of West Hollywood, show black men they’re not welcome.

“Places like the Abbey that will change the music up a certain way, or make sure that all you see in the bar are people that are identified as ‘their population,” he says. “Which is, y’know, Caucasian.”

(Abbey founder and owner David Cooley responds, "The Abbey is for everyone." He stressed that Sunday nights are "a little more hip-hop," and that the bar tries to keep things broad.)

.