pasadena's only gay bar has one month left and is spending it throwing a halloween party. somebody please buy this bar.

via the Pasadena Star-News and The Boulevard

The announcement went up on Oct. 1, and it sounds exactly like a neighborhood gay bar: "With love and gratitude, we're sharing that The Boulevard Bar will be closing its doors. Our last night will be Saturday, October 31st." Then, because it is a gay bar in October: "Come celebrate the Boo-levard with us all month long."

The Boulevard sits at 3199 E. Foothill Blvd. and is, as the Pasadena Star-News puts it, known as Pasadena's only gay bar. The paper dates it to 1981. Its last night is a Halloween party starting at 7 p.m.

why the boulevard is closing

Owner Steve Terradot is 69, and he told the Star-News the simple version first: "I'm too old now." He bought the bar in 1999, after losing his circle of friends to AIDS, and the paper lists what the last few years have looked like: getting through COVID, his brother's death, a heart attack, and losing his own home in Altadena to the Eaton fire. The fire also cost the bar regulars who moved away, he said, and weeknights felt it most.

He also said this, which is the part that should sting: "In our current political climate, where trans people are being vilified, it's not as safe as it once was. I hate to see it because, at the same time, we're losing our gay bars."

is anyone buying it

Terradot would rather hand it to someone younger than lock the door. "I've gotten a few offers, but nothing concrete," he told the paper. So if you have been sitting on a dream of owning a small gay bar with a Halloween tradition and a loyal crowd in the San Gabriel Valley, the man is retiring, not hiding.

"The community I've found there was great, it's like a family," regular Jack Hall, 47, told the Star-News. "We take care of each other."

It is the second long-running gay bar we have watched announce its last night this fall, after the Las Vegas Eagle. If you are in Los Angeles and need somewhere to go after Oct. 31, our LA bar guide is here. But go to The Boulevard first. You have three Saturdays.