New York Newsday - Thursday, January 12, 1995
UNSAFE SEX CLUBS: SAFE FROM CRACKDOWNS
by Gabriel Rotello
	New York - Is New York City Health Commissioner Margaret Hamburg genuinely
concerned about HIV transmission in the city's sex clubs? Apparently not. At
least that's the impression one gets reading a series of letters from Health
Department officials to the owners of a sex club that has long been in
flagrant violation of the law. The letters, copies of which were obtained by
freelance journalist Duncan Osborne, date from May  to just eight weeks ago.
They were written to "the owner or operator of the Zone DK," a large,
primarily gay sex club in Chelsea, by Dr. Benjamin Mojica, Hamburg's Acting
Deputy Commissioner for Disease Intervention. 
	"This letter constitutes the last warning," Mojica wrote to Zone DK in May.
Over a period of several months, he wrote, Health Department inspectors had
witnessed "many instances of high risk sexual activity" at the club, and were
ready to act. "If you do not address this health threat immediately," Mojica
warned, "we will move to fine and close your establishment."  
	Tough words. But a month passed, the situation did not improve, and Mojica
did nothing. Except write again. "Inspectors continue to report incidents of
high risk sexual activity," he wrote in June. "If you do not address this
public heath threat immediately we will move to fine and to close your
establishment." Another month passed, but Mojica wasn't fining or closing
anything. He was writing. "Unfortunately, our most recent inspections
indicate that high risk sexual activity continues to take place," went his
July installment. Fix it pronto, he warned, or the city "will move to fine
and close your club." 
	Ho hum. Finally, just eight weeks ago, another letter. Mojica wrote that "ins
tances of high risk sexual activity" continue to be observed. But this time
his sense of urgency was notably absent. "If your club violates the law," he
continued, "you may be fined, closed or both." 
	If? May be? Health Department spokesman Steve Matthews defended this verbal
wimp out by his department's paper tigers, saying the club had made
"significant attempts to become compliant." But I went there on Saturday
night to see for myself, and I hardly saw compliance. True, a "monitor"
occasionally breezes through with a flashlight, and condomless sex stops for
a few seconds, resuming the moment he's gone. True, a PA system occasionally
announces a list of unsafe activities. But that seems like a joke, since so
many of the patrons are engaging in them. 
	In an irony that turns the paranoid scenarios of sexual libertarians inside
out, administration insiders say that the city is hesitating to crack down on
unsafe gay sex clubs lest it seem homophobic. It wants to crack down on
unsafe heterosexual clubs simultaneously, to appear balanced. But it can't
find any straight clubs that tolerate unsafe sex. So safe straight clubs
serve as shield to protect unsafe gay ones.
	Matthews won't confirm what is surely the most misplaced, bizarre example of
pro-gay sensitivity on record. But even he admits that the city isn't really
serious about fining or closing unsafe clubs. It sees them, he says, as
venues to bring "HIV prevention messages to a community that obviously needs
them." But the prevention literature on display at Zone DK is seen everywhere
in the gay male world. The specific message that patrons receive in places
like Zone DK is the precise opposite: that they can ignore prevention
messages and party on. 
	It's sad to have to look to Margaret Hamburg to make gay sex clubs safe.
AIDS groups should be monitoring them, working to make them safe, picketing
the ones that won't cooperate, doing whatever it takes. But there appears to
be no appetite at gay-run AIDS organizations for anything other than making
sure owners distribute a few condoms and brochures. That leaves the city and
the law. Neither is working. Perhaps the AIDS crisis is over, and I just
haven't noticed.