Illicit After-Hours Drinking Clubs Costing State $10 Million A Year

A January 24, 1977 article (“Ilicit After-Hours Drinking Clubs Costing State $10 Million a Year”) from the New York Times reports that the Mafia continues to run gay clubs:

Lawrence J. Gedda, who is a commissioner and chief executive officer of the S.L.A. [State Liquor Authority], says that intelligence reports indicate that as many as 200 “big-dollar commercial operations” exist in the State.  Most are in Manhattan.  * * *  The bottle clubs that trouble the authorities are the profit-making establishments that the S.L.A. suspects are sanctuaries for gambling, prostitution, narcotics trafficking and other criminal activities.  * * *  High police officials contend that they are aware of the clubs.  But except for organized crime money possibly being behind clubs that are patronized by homosexuals, the department has no evidence of widespread underworld activity at most clubs.

Among the specific gay bars indentified in the January 24, 1977 article are the following:  The B and W Social Club at 163 East 86^th Street; The Flying Saucer Disco at 544 Hudson Street (“attracts both teenagers and older customers,” and “[t]he scent of marijuana drifted from the dark dance floor and booths” and “[s]everal youth wandered around, offering to sell ‘coke (cocaine) and other drugs”); The Galaxy 21 at 256 West 23d Street (“several people wandered about, whispering that narcotics were for sale”); The Anvil at 500 West 14^th Street; Dramatis Personae at 114 West 14^th Street; a club known only as 428 East 75^th Street; and the 500A Social Club at 500A East 73d Street.