Source: Arizona Republic, East Valley Tribune
Scottsdale, Ariz. -- A dance club here that was once the subject of a high-profile discrimination complaint by a trans woman who was kicked out has now become what Arizona Republic calls "the Valley's premier club for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community."
It's become one of only two gay clubs in the college town that borders Phoenix. With its new name and outreach to the LGBT community, Club Forbidden has attracted overflow crowds each weekend. Long lines are a regular feature of the club. On a Saturday night a Republic reporter found a line snaking up the block with a wait could run more than an hour.
On the user-review site Yelp.com, a visitor comments, "I don't know how the gays do it. When I say 'it' I mean wait through lines up to 100 deep amidst the stench of foul sewage emanating from the Scottsdale canal.
"Long line out front led to long lines for drinks inside," the Yelp user noted. "No big deal. It seems the huge crowd here at the former Anderson's Fifth Estate, were mostly the circuitey types you would see at Burn and Amsterdam."
Burn was a Phoenix gay dance club that closed at about the same time Forbidden opened in the space that had been called Anderson's Fifth Estate for 25 years. It was a rock and new wave dance club whose heyday had passed long ago.
Another Yelp user comments, "Club Forbidden was opened just prior to Burn Nightclub closing in Phoenix, so many regulars from Burn now come to dance at this club. DJ Jeremy, who used to spin at Burn, now works here as well."
Lines rarely formed at the former Anderson's, which had been declining since its late-'90s heyday.
The 5,500-square foot club can hold 325 people and is open five days a week, up from three when it was Anderson's Fifth Estate. Now, more than 700 people come through on Fridays and Saturdays each, more than double what Fridays used to draw, the Republic reports.
In jeans and with purposefully mussy hair Bryan Dockter, 24, of Mesa, once waited for 30 minutes before someone let him cut to get in early. He figures he would have been in line for another hour.
"It's my favorite place to go," he told Arizona Republic.
Tempe's David Lowrimore, 21, said he doesn't care about the controversy. Forbidden is the place to be right now.
"I actually think it's brave they tried a gay bar because they're straight owners," he says, "and they did a great job."
The controversy Lowrimore referred to started in 2006 when club owner Tom Anderson asked a transgendered woman, Michele de LaFreniere, to leave his club.
Anderson argued that women complained about men in dresses standing up to use toilets in the women's restroom.
De LaFreniere, chairwoman of Scottsdale’s Human Relations Commission, who had been to the club many times without incident, filed a claim of sex discrimination with the Arizona attorney general.
For more than a year afterward, Anderson was the subject of dozens of newspaper and television stories pitting him against the LGBT community and its allies. He became known as the club owner who kicked out a transgendered woman.
This happened as people were questioning whether Scottsdale was becoming hostile toward the LGBT community, after a gay couple was assaulted outside a restaurant and after Mayor Mary Manross refused to observe LGBT month in June.
Anderson, who owns the club with his wife, Roberta, resolved the dispute in November 2007 by building a gender-neutral restroom. A month later, he announced that he would close the Fifth Estate and reopen as a gay club.
Anderson told the Republic that during the controversy over the discrimination complaint he met with members of the LGBT community. One of the things he learned was how underserved the community was in Scottsdale, with only one bar, BS West, in the area. Anderson said he saw both a business opportunity and a chance to be part of a community he'd come to know and enjoy.
The Andersons reopened the club as Forbidden in December, a month after the resolution.
When he announced the change, Anderson insisted to East Valley Tribune that the change purely a business decision. "Politics has nothing to do with it at all," he said in December. "It gives the people a place in the East Valley to come and dance."
Forbidden has hosted events for several gay organizations, sponsored a float in Phoenix's Pride parade in April, and will be the site of an upcoming transgender fundraiser.
In December, as he was putting finishing touches on the new club's decor, Anderson told the Tribune that the controversy over the bias complaint had given him a new perspective.
"If anything, it gave me a better understanding of their needs," Anderson said -- referring to the area's LGBT community. "I'm a businessman in the entertainment business, and I want to provide the best entertainment that’s out there for markets that don’t get what they need."
Anderson, who now counts de LaFreniere as a close friend, told the Republic that he's relieved the gay community has embraced the club.
LaFeniere has been to the club several times, she told the Republic, and says she's impressed by Anderson's commitment to the GLBT community.
On a recent night, de LaFreniere danced in her favorite spot, by the speakers to the right of the stage, and said it felt like coming home.
"I'd always loved dancing there, before everything, and I just started crying; it just brought back all my good memories," she said.
Sam Holdren, public affairs director of Phoenix-based Equality Arizona, the group that helped mediate the agreement between de LaFreniere and Anderson, said he's not surprised at the GLBT community's enthusiasm.
"This is really the perfect ending to the story," he told the Republic. "This is really what happens when people come together to learn from each other."
Full article: Uproar turns straight bar into gay hot spot | Arizona Republic
Club in transgender dispute now caters to gays | East Valley Tribune (12/07)