“You want a place to socialize where you won’t encounter bias.”Ī club such as Dempsey’s is even more important in a community like Spokane because fewer social opportunities exist for gays here, she said. “There might be a sense of, ‘You have all these other places. The frustration among gays about the influx of heterosexuals doesn’t surprise Laura Brown, a Seattle psychologist who works with gays and lesbians. “I can definitely tell this place has lost its appeal to a gay crowd. “If you’re looking for a straight club, this is a great straight club,” he said. He sat by himself in the second-level lounge area off the dance floor. “And as long as the club continues to play the hottest dance music around, people will remain loyal.”Ī 24-year-old bisexual man who works in sales and asked not to be identified, fearing the reactions of his boss and clients, agreed Dempsey’s is a great dance club. “Dempsey’s, known initially as one of Spokane’s preeminent gay nightclubs, has risen steadily in popularity over the past five years,” the Inlander reported. “All of a sudden … it’s become fashionable to come to a gay club,” Lewis said. Readers of The Inlander, a Spokane alternative weekly, named Dempsey’s the best dance club in town last April. “As long as they’re gay-friendly and don’t cause problems, it’s OK.” “I’m proud to own an establishment that the straight sector can come to and be accepted with open arms,” he said. Owner David Lewis said he knows some gays have fled the club because of its popularity among straights, but said Dempsey’s always will be a “gay club.” Miller, 26, who recently moved from Seattle. “Since Spokane has such a closeted gay community, this is one of the few places gays can go to flirt,” said Jeffery T. Plus, the club is one of only a handful of gay bars in the Inland Northwest. It’s also a bar intended to give homosexuals in conservative Spokane a clean, tastefully decorated club they can go to without feeling inhibited. First, is more to the gay community than a dance club.
“I thought, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not fair.”’ĭempsey’s, at 909 W. “The last time I was there, which was early last year, I was up there and looking around and saw this guy I liked, and I saw him looking somewhere and he was looking at a woman,” he said. But some see the influx of heterosexuals in recent years as an invasion.įor Southwick, the Dempsey’s crowd is now too young, too loud and too straight. On weekend nights, people of all sexual tastes cram the dance floor. “They take over and they sort of push us out of the way,” said Mark Southwick, 42, editor of the Spokane gay monthly Stonewall News Northwest. They see the mainstream success that Dempsey’s is achieving as a threat to the very intent of the club as a meeting place for the gay community.
Some gays who frequent the club say the throngs of heterosexuals are taking away from Dempsey’s role as a sanctuary for gays and lesbians. Many of the dancers at one of Spokane’s most popular dance clubs are 20-somethings.īut Dempsey’s Brass Rail is distinctly different from other popular Spokane bars: It’s a gay bar.
The pair is surrounded by men and women in groups, in couples and even some brave people dancing by themselves, such as a man dressed as a woman in a green dress suit. Two clean-cut young men dance together near a mirrored wall, their arms a blur of motion. It’s midnight and the techno-funk beat is pulsing furiously.