Bathhouses once thrived in San Francisco. The city’s gay supervisors are fighting for their return.

Two San Francisco city supervisors are trying to make it easier for new gay bathhouses to open in the city.

Last week, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, whose district includes the historically gay Castro neighborhood, introduced legislation that would repeal the San Francisco Police Department’s Article 26. According to local Fox affiliate KTVU, the section of the city’s police code puts the burden of permitting new bathhouses on the SFPD.

Related:

Could bathhouses make a return to San Francisco? This proposal may make it happen

37 years after the city effectively forced bathhouses to close, a District supervisor may pave a way for them to reopen.

“We’ve come a long way on the way to bring back gay bathhouses to San Francisco,” Mandelman, who is gay, told KTVU. “It’s encouraging that there are entrepreneurs who are actually trying to open these venues, although it is frustrating that we keep finding new barriers in their way.”

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Article 26, Mandelman said, is the reason some potential business owners have spent months waiting for the SFPD to issue permits so they can open gay bathhouses in the city.

Mandelman’s ordinance would also repeal regulations passed at the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s that required bathhouses in San Francisco to maintain a daily register of patrons and prohibited locked doors in the venues. Mandelman’s office said that the crackdown on gay bathhouses in the ’80s contributed to the stigma around HIV/AIDS.

“Opening a new business in San Francisco is difficult enough,” Joel Aguero, owner of Castro Baths, said. “Supervisor Mandelman and his office are removing a significant blocker to the permit process, accelerating the opening of Castro Baths, and supporting the growing community of would-be bathhouse operators and attendees who seek to revive San Francisco’s once-thriving bathhouse culture.”

Mandelman previously passed legislation to do away with ’80s era health code restrictions affecting gay bathhouses in 2020, and in 2022 he passed legislation allowing bathhouses to open in LGBTQ+ neighborhoods like the Castro and the Tenderloin.

“I’m thankful to Supervisor Mandelman for his leadership in removing outdated barriers to reopen bathhouses in San Francisco,” said city supervisor Matt Dorsey, who co-sponsored Mandelman’s ordinance.

“The South of Market neighborhood I represent has a long and storied history with these establishments. With hindsight, we now know that restrictions adopted decades ago at [the] advent of the AIDS crisis likely deprived at-risk communities of sex-positive spaces where information about safer sex practices might have saved lives.”

Dorsey, who is also gay and the only openly HIV-positive member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, noted that with advancements in HIV prevention and treatment like antiretroviral therapy and PrEP, “It’s past time for anti-bathhouse restrictions to go.”

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