Light Of Love
On not being scared to drink at the Spotlight By Sarah Tressler waiting outside when I got here,” he says. At the end of the bar, I see an elderly man in an English driving cap munching on the tortilla chips the bar hands out with drinks. Ben confirms that he’s Don Samuels. Before I make my way to the man in charge, I chat with 79-year-old Floyd Wightman, a retiree who formerly worked in corrections for the California Youth Authority. Floyd’s been haunting the Spotlight since the ’50s, before the original – on Vine and Selma – burned down. “I come here almost every night. It’s a kind of like a neighborhood bar,” he says. “When people come in, you don’t bother them, they don’t bother you. They are very friendly. People are very congenial, they’re very pleasant, they’ll talk to you – they don’t seem to have any hang-ups, which is good.” Wightman says that when he had surgery last July, Don Samuels called him in the hospital every day. “He’s concerned about his customers. He does that with everyone,”
LACITYBEAT 6 MARCH 12-18, 2009
Wightman says. Samuels entered into the business in 1974 with his partner. When his partner passed away in 1981, Samuels became the sole owner, and has been coming in nearly every night since, despite suffering a stroke that has impaired his speech. “We don’t care who comes in, as long as they’re presentable and clean and they respect each other and the people here,” says Samuels. “You show respect, you get respect. That’s my philosophy. Come in for a good time, have a few drinks, and meet other people. You have any other reason, we don’t need you.” Samuels says he has been approached by developers who have wanted to buy him out. “I’m not interested now in selling – because all my employees are very loyal,” says Samuels. Then, as an afterthought, he adds, “And I wouldn’t have any place to go every night.”✶ The Spotlight, 1601 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood. 6 a.m. to 2 a.m.; (323) 467-2425. www.spotlightbar.com.
the spotlight’s don samuels
RY
strike up a conversation.” The Cahuenga Corridor revitalization has helped the bar overcome that “scary” patch. Investors have been sprucing up the area with new restaurants and clubs, including Goa (a celeb club stop which has since been shut down) and Kitchen 24, a trendy, upscale diner. All this activity has caused some worry for the patrons of the Spotlight, though. Kevin McNickel – name changed at subject’s request – has been coming to the bar for the last two years. He has his suspicions about the future of the Spotlight. “Why was there a city planning committee notice on the wall of this bar over the summer saying that this bar with the attached building directly north of it on Cahuenga is being sold into some new hoity-toity club? All the normal people in Hollywood who remember the old Hollywood are very sad if this bar closes,” says McNickel. Rick agrees: “I only hope Don Samuels does not ever, ever sell this place.” Don Samuels is the owner of the Spotlight. Everyone I talk to tells me to talk to him. His nightly schedule is predictable: at about 7 p.m. he arrives at his bar, takes his seat on the end by the door, and stays there until it closes. I make plans to return that night to chat with him, but I am cautioned – again. “I get out of here way before sunset,” says McNickel. “I’ve never been here at night,” Rick says. “At nights, it gets a lot crazier.” And Neil, a waiter who’s come in for a post-work drink that afternoon, also warns me to take care when coming back at night. “In any bar in Hollywood, you need to keep your wits about you, because there’s always someone in the bar watching you. People who come in to watch you drinking – robbers, hustlers, muggers,” he says. Neil also says that he leaves the bar before 9 p.m. I tell him I’ll bring my boyfriend for safety. “Is he good-looking?” Neil asks. When I return, it’s after midnight. A tall, tan, bald man in a yellow tank top is tending bar this time. Ben, as he introduces himself, or Benji, as he’s called by some of the other patrons, has tended bar at the Spotlight for nine years. “My first day here, I worked the 6 a.m. shift, and there were people
LUKE MCGAR
Inside the Motherlode at Santa Monica and Robertson – described as the second oldest gay bar in Los Angeles by “Uncle Ronnie,” arguably the most fabulous AARP-qualifier still in operation in Hollywood – the bartender cautions me against going to the Spotlight, which is evidently the oldest gay bar still in operation in Hollywood. “That place is scary,” he says. This is a sentiment I’d already heard a lot – but no one had anything too specific to say about it. Most just clucked their tongues and shook their heads. So when it’s time to finally visit the Spotlight – formerly frequented by Rock Hudson and Johnny Mathis – I am too nervous to go inside. I sit in the café directly across the street at the corner of Cahuenga and Selma. Nearby is Hairroin, a hair salon that presumably fosters addictions; Big Wangs, a restaurant specializing in what I can only guess would be chicken wings – ahem – wangs; and a manicurist where I saw a neatly groomed man getting his nails done. I stare out the plate-glass window at the Spotlight. The blue awning over the door informs passersby that this bar was “Est. 1963,” the year JFK was assassinated and MLK gave a speech about a dream. When I finally sweep aside the curtain that blocks sunlight from the Spotlight’s depths, all I see is a typical bar. On the right is the bar itself, behind which a man in a ball cap and a gray sweatshirt pours drinks for his customers under the flickering light of ceiling-mounted televisions. On the left, a pinball machine, darts, a digital jukebox (“100,000 songs”!) and a smattering of tables and chairs. At 12:45 p.m. on a Wednesday, the juke is pumping out Britney Spears’ “Piece of Me,” the soaps are playing on the televisions, and seven men are seated at the bar. Tony, the bartender in the ball cap and sweatshirt, is 72. The first time he poured a drink for a customer at the Spotlight, Nixon was in the White House. Rick, one of the men at the bar, is an executive assistant who’s been coming to the Spotlight for three years. Rick names everyone in the bar and gives a brief back-story on each one of them – after he finishes fighting with his boyfriend about whether frozen blueberries can be baked into a pie. This is the scary bar? “It used to be a pretty shady place,” Rick says. “But they hired a new security crew here, David and Keith – and they’re a couple. They’re really nice. We had lunch with them down in Laguna one time.” I spotted Rick’s boyfriend Joi smoking outside the Spotlight the day before. “I come here as often as I can,” he says. “You know what I really love about this place – and I’ve only been coming here for two years – there used to be a lot of hustlers and street kids, they were characters here. But now it’s just the best place to sit and