New Jersey LGBT Bars 1930s-1960s in ABC Bulletins

Published on June 2, 2021

Use this map to visualize locations of pre-Stonewall New Jersey bars serving LGBTQ patrons, as described in ABC Bulletins from the 1930s to 1960s.

Download map data: Direct Link | CSV | Excel

Research in the ABC Bulletins collection digitized by the NJ State Research Library identified 150 bulletins in which the presence of a queer person was noted. All locations have been added to the map above. This map is considered comprehensive, but corrections and additions are welcome.

Trigger warning: Bulletins linked in this post and on the map may contain homophobia, descriptions of mistreatment, and slurs. These are historical documents and do not reflect current social norms or acceptable language.

Update: On 29 June 2021, Attorney General Gurbir Grewal vacated the decisions of the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) that resulted in penalties against bar owners serving LGBT patrons in the 1930s-1960s. This map has been updated to note when licensees were included in the Attorney General’s directive, and also includes seven locations that were not issued a pardon, locations in which the charges were dismissed, bars accused of lewdness between queer people after 1967, and appeals and court challenges to decisions, for a total of 150 decisions.

See the Attorney General’s press release and the directive with an appendix listing the bars.

ABC Bulletins in NJ State Library Digital Collections

The NJ State Research Library has a large and growing repository of digitized State Documents, preserving and making them available free online for lawmakers, lawyers, State employees, and the general public. Part of our commitment to preserving New Jersey history involves identifying, digitizing, and making available State publications relating to marginalized and disenfranchised populations. These include the State Asylum reports, documents and publications on Black New Jerseyans’ history, documents on women’s suffrage, and documents on civil rights.

The Bulletins of the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) are an important primary source for the social history of nightlife, entertainment, law enforcement, crime, and bar culture in New Jersey. Additional background information about the ABC collection can be found in Alcoholic Beverage Control Bulletins reveal social history of New Jersey by Caitlyn Cook.

Notably, the ABC Bulletins contain significant descriptions of queer culture and LGBTQ people’s relationships to the law and each other, in a time in which being one’s authentic self in public involved significant personal risk.

How and why did the ABC Bulletins document queer public life?

Post-prohibition legislation led to establishment of the ABC, whose director was empowered by law to create regulations for consumption of alcohol. Then as now, a liquor licensee had requirements to uphold state regulations.

Bar owners who tolerated customers perceived by ABC agents as gender non-conforming broke Rules 4 and 5 of the ABC State Regulations No. 20. Conduct of Licensees and Use of Licensed Premises. ABC Agents who had witnessed people being queer in public provided testimony that described clothing, posture, and timbre of voice to assign charges of “female impersonation” and “male impersonation”, often in combination with other violations, but occasionally the presence of queer people was enough to bring a case and penalties against bar owners.

The regulations were based on ABC’s moral mandate, as expressed in 1955 by Commissioner Davis, “It is clear that homosexuals may well have a harmful effect on some members of the public. Furthermore, where they congregate and conduct themselves in the manner hereinbefore related, they are a threat to the safety and morals of the public.” (Bulletin 1063, Item 1)

Penalties were strict from the outset. In 1941, Acting Commissioner Garrett sets a precedent minimum charge of 15 days suspension for first offense on rule 5, presence of female impersonators. (Bulletin 474, Item 1) Long license suspensions for multiple or recurring violations (sometimes up to 180 days) could drive some bars out of business. Peter Clyment, who operated an unnamed Gloucester City bar in 1942, was compelled to sell his bar license and never operate again, partly for employing two unlicensed entertainers from Philadelphia as “female impersonators.” (Bulletin 491, Item 2)

Being Visibly Queer

The Peter Orsi case in 1939 (Bulletin 326, item 1), and the appeal (Bulletin 390, item 1) established a “you know one when you see one” precedent cited in subsequent cases, in a case where the only disallowed activity was queer people on the premises.

Bar owners, entertainers, and guests routinely gave testimony arguing they were not queer, only perceived as such in ways that were arbitrary. The Commissioner typically dismissed all such claims if his agents gave detailed testimony describing behavior and appearance outside what he considered normal. As can be imagined, bar owners and their lawyers tried a variety of ways to defend their businesses, bringing in psychiatrists and even a sociologist as defense witnesses. To support a charge of “obscene conduct by entertainer”, agents provided extended descriptions of verbal interactions, as well as comedy and burlesque performances by “Joe” on multiple dates in November 1951. Joe testified that he was a married man and that his performances were not indecent, and he was not impersonating a female, he impersonated a variety of entertainers, one of whom was Hollywood star Helen Morgan. (Bulletin 953, Item 1) At the time of a 1959 raid on Anthony’s in Paterson, bar manager Ruth Murphy Loomis stated she observed no unusual conduct among them and asked, “‘Tell me one thing: These people who you call homosexuals, gays or whatever you call them – what are they supposed to do?’ and that the agent replied, ‘I can’t answer that.’” (Bulletin 1289, Item 7)

In 1959, the commissioner wrote that clothes alone were not the determination someone was queer, describing a group at the Rutgers Cocktail Bar as “obviously homosexuals as indicated by their appearance and actions, including their manner of speech, their walk, gestures and other mannerisms.” (Bulletin 1133, Item 2) It took the New Jersey Supreme Court case, One-Eleven Liquors, v. ABC, (decided November 6, 1967) to remove the prohibition on “well-behaved” queer people using bars. See Whitney Strub and Timothy Stewart-Winter (Nov 30, 2017). “Remembering One Eleven Wines, a Pre-Stonewall Win Against Homophobic State Surveillance.” Slate.

The Supreme Court case did not exactly end the harassment of queer people in bars. Almost two years later, there was a 14 June 1969 raid on the Gold Nugget in New Brunswick. Three transgender or gender nonconforming women sitting in a bar were arrested and searched but were released and the charges dropped under “recent ruling by the director that the mere presence of female impersonators in a licensed premises, without more, e.g. overt acts of lewdness of their engaging in immoral activity is not violative of Rule 4 of State Regulation No. 20.” (Bulletin 1933, Item 4)

The Silver Lining

Reading in some cases dehumanizing descriptions of queer people in our grandparents’ generation is upsetting. Bulletins are historic documents of the period, and contain what we would today describe as slurs, homophobia and codified disrespect for queer lives.

It is ironic that the detailed testimony used to punish and drive out of business bars where queer people could find each other, also preserves rare descriptions of underground queer culture and personal life. There are detailed and vivid descriptions of fashion; cabaret, comedy, and drag performances; and sometimes funny conversations between queer patrons, bar owners, and ABC agents. Some bulletins preserve inadvertent tributes to romance, joy, and tenderness between queer people. Notable among these are a description of Freddie and Renee dancing together at the Clover Leaf Inn in Hamilton (Bulletin 1159, Item 1) and descriptions of couples dancing and being physically affectionate at Paterson’s NY Bar in 1955. (Bulletin 1063, Item 1)

At Anthony’s in Paterson in 1959, an agent stated, “a large number of the males wore loud sweaters, loud shirts and multicolored scarves.” (Bulletin 1289, Item 7) We know in the summer of 1966, butch and gender nonconforming women or transgender people at Jack’s Star Bar in Newark wore t shirts and “zipper fly pants”, one person wearing a “man’s haircut with side burns” and another “a heavy rock and roll hair-do combed back, sweeping back to his [sic] side of the temples.” (Bulletin 1667, Item 3)

Agents described what sounds like a drag show at the Secaucus Copa Club in March 1956: “the same male musician, now in padded house-dress and wearing a wig, sang an indecent parody of a popular song to a guitar player. Thereafter another performer sang a double entendre song to a couple celebrating their wedding anniversary.” (Bulletin 1112, Item 1) At Hoover’s Tavern, Morris Plains in 1963, a performer named Jim gave a saucy performance, while “two of the apparent homosexuals placed their arms about each other’s waist while they were talking, rolled their eyes at each other and made endearing motions.” (Bulletin 1521, Item 1)

Queer New Jerseyans of the 1930s through the 1960s demonstrated incredible bravery being queer in public when so much could be lost with an arrest. Bar owners risked and sometimes lost their livelihoods by providing space to queer patrons. Being queer and gender nonconforming in public still sometimes presents a risk, but increasingly New Jersey is a safer place to live and thrive.

Update 14 Dec 2021: added municipalities and counties to locations spreadsheet: CSV | Excel