Gay bathhouse salt lake city

On December fourth, nineteen eighty-six, Salt Lake City's final remaining bathhouses, Club 14 and Jeff's Gym (also known as Club Baths), were served with cease-and-desist notices from Salt Lake City attorney, Roger Cutler. Cutler insisted, 'Salt Lake City is of the opinion that each business represents a brothel, a venue for lewdness, assignation, or prostitution.' Cutler designated Bruce Baird, the city's assistant attorney, to handle the case. These two bathhouses, along with a third that had been operating very successfully for over a decade, were shuttered when the city deemed them public nuisances.

Club Baths commenced operations as a component of a nationwide chain in 1972. It was known as Jeff's Gym, and Ray Andrews was the inaugural manager. It was extremely successful, yet did not openly present itself as a gay club. The market proved robust enough in Salt Lake City that, within a couple of years, another bathhouse known as the GYM started operating. It was an openly gay establishment and, in 1976, was advertising in the gay community's newspaper, The Open Door.

In 1978, The Gay Service Center sponsored an after-hours party at the GYM. It was promoted with the advertisement: 'Refreshments of a kegger-type will be provided. Bring your own towel.'

So popular were these bathhouses as a cornerstone of the gay men's community that, in 1976, when the Royal Court of the Golden Spike Empire presented its first official awards banquet, amongst the approximate thirty awards presented, 'Best Baths Attendants' was included.

The GYM did not survive beyond the disco years when an ongoing dispute between businessman Mack Hunt and the club's owner over finances resulted in the closure of the place. Picking up the slack was a new bathhouse, Club 14. It was owned by Leo Busch, a heterosexual man who made a substantial living off the sexual desires of gay men. The club was located in a seedy part of Salt Lake City, but its location was convenient, being down the street from the gay bar district, situated on 200 South.

An unusual fact regarding Club 14 was that its employees were not remunerated. Leo would take in homeless gay youth, providing them with work in the bathhouse, and allowing them to reside in the upstairs apartment. I was told that Leo rescued numerous young men from being without shelter.

I never went to Jeff's Gym before it was shut down, but I went to Club 14 many times, for personal and community reasons. Leo permitted posters of gay events to be displayed in his establishment, and we provided the establishment with copies of Triangle, which served as Salt Lake's gay magazine during the late nineteen-eighties. The place was a maze of plywood cubbies, painted black, where late-night liaisons could transpire on small cots, and also in the hot tub and steam room. Certainly, the place possessed gym equipment, but I never observed anyone utilizing it.

In 1985, the RCGSE organized the initial AIDS Awareness event in Utah, accumulating nearly five thousand dollars, which, at the time, represented the only substantial endeavor to raise funds for AIDS services and education. The money was allocated directly to individuals with AIDS and to print safe-sex pamphlets for the bars and bathhouses. In reality, the bathhouses were some of the initial public locations where AIDS information could be found.

However, by 1986, Utah authorities, driven by the AIDS panic among heterosexuals, concluded that the bathhouses had to be eliminated. Salt Lake Mayor Palmer DePaulis directed the police chief, city attorney, and city-county health department director to "explore all legal remedies" to shut down Salt Lake's bathhouses. The mayor asserted, "the ongoing operation and licensing of these establishments is detrimental to the community's interests. Police investigations have consistently confirmed that illicit sexual activity is allowed and condoned, with all of its health, moral, and other negative implications in our community." We've got trouble here in Salt Lake City. Trouble with a capital "T!"

In the initial months of 1987, Third District Judge Raymond Uno heard arguments concerning whether the bathhouses should be allowed to continue operating.

Eventually, Club Baths closed in 1987, after deciding not to contest further actions on the part of the city. By agreeing not to challenge the city's license revocation, Jeff Gym, in effect, denied the court the opportunity to establish a precedent labeling all gay meeting places as 'public nuisances.'

Club 14 also closed its doors but reopened at a gay 'juice bar.' All partitions were removed, and improved lighting was installed. Busch subsequently reopened the establishment as the 14th Street Gym. The steam room and pool remained open, but the business was perpetually under strict surveillance. Salt Lake undercover police officers would frequent the club simply to monitor the behavior of gay men.

Busch passed away in 2004, and his two heterosexual sons kept the business running, catering to gay men. Nevertheless, in 2005, police officers arrested two men for engaging in oral sex in the steam room, and the city once again sought to revoke the bathhouse's business license.

The business license for the gym was revoked, but in 2008, an appeals court overturned the decision and mandated the reinstatement of the license. The place, under the management of Leo's sons, was, at best, dismal.

A close friend wrote to me some time ago, 'My feelings about Leo and the establishment are mixed. If you must go there, it's best not to go when Leo's grouchy hetero son is in charge of controls, as he has a tendency to enhance the experience with minor touches, such as setting the steam room light dimmer at full, 100-watt illumination, while maintaining the hot tub thermostat at a lukewarm 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Tony once assured me that he cleans that steam room 'at least twice a month.' However, even on those fortunate occasions, he does not use bleach.'

I am uncertain about when the 14th Street Gym finally closed. I believe it was sometime in the year two thousand ten when the Busch sons could no longer maintain its infrastructure. It operated for almost twenty-five years after the city's effort to shut it down.

The decision of Salt Lake City officials to close our bathhouses in nineteen eighty-six unequivocally signaled that AIDS had irrevocably impacted gay life, not only medically but also politically and socially. Ironically, the attack on the bathhouses was not waged out of concern for the health of gay men. Subsequent to the conclusion of the hysteria, Baird informed Triangle that the concern regarding heterosexual transmission of AIDS might have served as the genuine catalyst for the closures.

The glass gazebo that once enclosed the hot tub at Jeff's Gym currently serves as a garden greenhouse, located in the backyard of an Avenues residence, which is listed in the Utah Historical Register.