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New laws for 2012
Travel: Fort Lauderdale
ARTS
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Year in arts, 2011
The
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Serving the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities since 1971
Vol. 41 • No. 52 • December 29, 2011-January 4, 2012
Sober space seeks fiscal sponsor
SB 48 set to take effect
by Matthew S. Bajko
O
by Seth Hemmelgarn
T
he Castro Country Club has once again won a reprieve, as the latest offer to buy its 18th Street building fell through. But the sober space in the heart of the city’s LGBT district still faces an uphill battle to remain in its building. It continues to raise money to purchase the property as it seeks a new fiscal sponsor. Rick Gerharter Baker Places has Terry Beswick told the club that as of July 1 it will no longer cover the sober space’s operational expenses. For the past 11 years the nonprofit maintained the club’s books, carried its liability insurance, and provided taxdeductible status. It has also paid $6,000 a month toward the club’s rent and utilities, as meeting room rental fees and profits from the on-site cafe fall far short of operating costs. “Baker Places never intended for the CCC to become a permanent program of theirs; they informed us three years ago and every year since that they wanted us to become financially self-reliant,” wrote the club’s advisory board in a December 19 email. Baker Places Executive Director Jonathan Vernick could not be reached for comment. Due to the holidays, he is out of the office and did not respond to an interview request by press time. The club’s board has been working to either become its own independent nonprofit or find a new fiscal sponsor. It is in talks with a number of LGBT nonprofits to work out a deal by next summer. But club officials declined to specify the groups they had approached. “We are in negotiations but I can’t talk about with whom because it is sensitive,” said board member Rebecca Prozan. “We just need to find the right home and we are on track to do that.” Prozan remains hopeful the club will remain at 4058 18th Street. “I really honestly believe we will stay on 18th Street. I have no doubt about it,” she said. The club has raised nearly $200,000 for its Keep the Steps in the Castro campaign. The money is slated for a down payment toward the purchase of the building, which is listed for sale at $1.1 million, or if need be, for a new location. The board wants to raise another $100,000 in 2012. It has lucked out in seeing the building remain available, as the latest offer See page 2 >>
Rick Gerharter
Sisters quick to help F
aster than Santa could get his sleigh to San Francisco, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence sprang into action last week after a five-alarm fire demolished an apartment building and damaged others near Alamo Square December 22. The Sisters held a benefit two days later, on Christmas Eve. Above, Sister Gina Tonic gives fire victim Scott Scharenbroich a reassuring back rub outside the Edge bar, site of a very successful clothes donation and beer bust organized by Sister Phylies Withe Litaday for the 60 displaced people from the fire. Sister Roma looks on. All stood in front of a portion of the five-pickup-truck-loads of donated clothes, toiletries, and other necessities. Further donations of money and clothes can be made by visiting http://www.alamosq.org.
ne of California’s most controversial new laws goes into effect January 1. The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful Education Act – also known as Senate Bill 48 – requires that LGBTs’ historical contributions be taught in schools. Anti-gay activists have proposed five initiatives aimed at gutting the law, but some students don’t seem to see anything wrong with it. Skylar Keating, 18, a high school senior from Menlo Park, California, said the law would bolster what students learn. He’s had textbooks that include LGBT-specific history, he said, but “we’ve just never gone over it.” Keating, who is transgender, said SB 48 would be helpful. “I want to talk about the AIDS epidemic and how horrible it was to our community,” and about “how strong we’ve gotten,” he said. Like Keating, Anna Sturla, 16, recently attended the 2011 Youth Empowerment Summit in San Francisco. Gay-Straight Alliance Network, which along with Equality California co-sponsored SB 48, organized the summit. Sturla, who didn’t want her orientation See page 9 >>
Attorney general issues letter to lawmakers on medical marijuana by Dan Aiello
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ust a week after Assemblyman Tom Ammiano met with the U.S. attorney’s office to discuss federal raids on California’s medical marijuana dispensaries and growers, California’s attorney general has issued a letter to the state’s top lawmakers warning that attempts to pass statewide regulation of marijuana must not impede upon the will of the people or further provoke the wrath of the federal government. “We have started a conversation,” Ammiano, an openly gay San Francisco Democrat, told the Bay Area Reporter of his meeting with Melinda Haag, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California. Ammiano called Haag’s requirement that marijuana dispensaries be 1,000 feet, as per federal law, rather than California’s 600 feet from schools, parks, and playgrounds, “entirely reasonable.” But Ammiano also warned that he would “continue to push back,” against what he sees as an arbitrary and irrational enforcement of federal controlled substances laws within the borders of the Golden State. Ammiano called the U.S. Department of Justice’s concerns “a moving target,” and expressed his frustration that any legislative efforts to regulate the implementation of
Jane Philomen Cleland
Attorney General Kamala Harris
Proposition 215 might pass, only to be met by new concerns of the feds. Prop 215, passed by state voters in 1996, legalized medical marijuana in California. Since then, 15 other states and the District of Columbia have followed suit. However, the federal government does not recognize medical marijuana as legal medicine.
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In the meantime, state Attorney General Kamala Harris wrote a letter December 21 to top lawmakers – Senate Pro Tem, Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and gay Assembly Speaker John A. Perez (D-Los Angeles) – and copied Ammiano and out state Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), both instrumental in the medical marijuana debate. In the letter, Harris wrote that, following a series of meetings with groups representing the parties concerned with the state’s medical marijuana laws she concluded that any effort to regulate the compassionate use of marijuana in statewide legislation will be limited by the state’s constitution and by the response to such legislation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act. “I am troubled by the exploitation of California’s medical marijuana laws by gangs, criminal enterprises, and others,” Harris wrote, explaining that the 2008 nonbinding guidelines established by her predecessor, Jerry Brown (now the governor), no longer are effective in a “more complicated” present day. Harris reminded Steinberg and Perez that two legal “boundaries” limit the Legislature’s ability to regulate the issue. First, said Harris, was the current precedent of the Second Appellate District ruling in Pack See page 9 >>