The gay community is coming together to support the last lesbian bar in Los Angeles after one of the city’s two lesbian bars declared it will close permanently due to the impact of the city’s devastating wildfires.
Due to the financial impact of the present natural disaster, The Ruby Fruit, a wine bar with a Sapphical bent that opened on Sunset Boulevard in the city’s Silver Lake neighborhood in February 2023, said on Saturday that it is no longer able to operate.
Regretfully, owners Emily Bielagus and Mara Herbkersman posted on social media that, in addition to the shock and loss we have been feeling over the past few days, there is an unavoidable fact: operating our little business is no longer viable. The hospitality sector operates on a daily basis, and at the moment, as they say, the math simply doesn’t add up.
Owners of other lesbian clubs across the United States asked how they could help in comments on the article, which instantly put the Los Angeles community into a tailspin.
A request for comment on whether the Ruby Fruit’s owners plan to gather money to maintain the bar was not immediately answered. However, in a Tuesday afternoon Instagram update, they stated that they would have more information soon about any hopeful plans for the future and how everyone can help. In the meanwhile, they will increase the GoFundMe fundraiser they set up for their staff.
In honor of people affected by the wildfires in Los Angeles, Honey’s at Star Love, the city’s other lesbian bar, announced on Instagram last week that it would be closed all weekend. Honey’s at Star Love opened in East Hollywood the same month as The Ruby Fruit.
To raise money for Honey’s and its employees, Pearl Bar, a lesbian bar in Houston, made a call on Saturday. Bars in Phoenix, New York, and San Francisco then shared the message.
Lesbians and queers everywhere must band together!In an Instagram post with details on how people may donate, Pearl Bar announced that @honeys.lahad will be temporarily closing this weekend due to the fires and air pollution. A full weekend off accounts for 25% of service workers’ pay. This catastrophe can linger for a month or more.
Pearl Bar owner Julie Mabry claimed to have made a connection with Kate Greenberg, one of Honey’s proprietors, who was reluctant to accept assistance. According to Mabry, she discussed with Greenberg how her firm was impacted by several hurricanes over the years as well as a tornado that struck Houston in May.
They chose to close that weekend to support their community, which I also greatly appreciate, so I was just advising her that perhaps they could provide some short-term relief for their employees, Mabry added. Since it will take a long time for the city to rebuild, they are worried about what will happen next.
According to Mabry, Pearl Bar has been operating for eleven years, and she has contemplated closing twice in the past nine months because of natural disasters. The bar had to close for three days over a weekend in May when a tornado caused three days of power outages. The bar then experienced a week-long power outage in July as a result of a hurricane. The pub lost $102,000 in income and damages as a result, but Mabry said it was able to cope because the city had just celebrated Pride month in June, which generated more money than usual. Some of the slowest months for bars, according to her, are January and February.
We don’t want to lose our places, therefore I think it’s acceptable to ask for assistance, Honey stated.
A request for comment on the efforts and if Honey’s faces closure was not immediately answered by Greenberg.
According to NBC News, there are just about 20 lesbian bars left in the country in 2020, after decades of decline. According to another NBC News investigation last year, the Ruby Fruit and Honey’s at Star Love were one of over a dozen sapphic establishments that have since opened, increasing the total number of lesbian bars in the country to at least 35.
According to Erica Rose, one of the creators of the Lesbian Bar Project, a documentary and fundraising initiative about the nation’s surviving lesbian bars, Los Angeles lacked a dedicated Sapphic venue for over ten years prior to the opening of The Ruby Fruit and Honey’s. She also mentioned that the two areas were complementary, with Honey’s seeming more like a cocktail lounge and The Ruby Fruit providing a more private date experience.
According to Elina Street, another co-founder of the Lesbian Bar Project, “we all need our spaces in order to exist, and when we lose one, we lose our culture, which is tied to our identity.” This is truly heartbreaking news, and we sincerely hope that the community will come together as they so eloquently do and that we will be able to come up with more ways to provide more spaces.