LOS ANGELES – The New Jalisco Bar has served as a safe space for LGBTQ+ individuals for over twenty-plus years, but is now on the brink of closing its doors due to lack of rent relief.
It first opened in the 1990s to cater to LA’s growing LGBTQ Latino crowd. Many restaurants and bars in the LA area have shut down as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic which has caused many people to lose the businesses that they spent their whole lives working on.
For LGBTQ+ bar and club spaces in particular, not only is losing one’s business a problem, but losing that safe space is also a unique problem that many LGBTQ+ people will have to face as a result of the pandemic.