Several bathhouses chose to close rather than monitor their patrons. Ultimately a local judge blocked the shutdown, instead allowing the clubs and bathhouses to stay open if they monitored their patrons and ejected anyone engaging in activities that could spread the AIDS virus. In the 1970s, before AIDS began to appear in the gay community, San Francisco was home to 20 to 30 gay bathhouses and sex establishments, said Paul Boneberg, executive director of Mobilization Against AIDS. We have benefited the community for over 25 years and feel now the time has come to close. A recorded message on the bath’s phone told callers, “We are closed and will not reopen. Neither the bathhouse owners nor their attorney were available for comment. “If they opened up (again) for a bathhouse, they’d be in big trouble.” “They cannot reopen for any sex-oriented business without permission from the courts,” Delventhal said. But this week, the bathhouse’s owners reached a settlement with the city that called for closure of the bathhouse in exchange for dismissal of the charges, said Deputy City Atty. In April, the San Francisco city attorney’s office had charged 21st Street Baths with violating a 1984 court order requiring clubs to bar sexual activities that could spread acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The last remaining gay bathhouse in San Francisco closed with hardly a ripple this week, a victim of stricter laws and changing life styles brought about by the AIDS epidemic.
