The Patch (by Eric Kupferschmid)

December 08, 2020

The Patch (by Eric Kupferschmid)

The Patch

The Patch was a gay nightclub located in Los Angeles California. It opened on April 7^th, 1968 in the former place of a straight club on Pacific Coast Highway. It quickly became extremely popular for “male-male” dancing. This led to the Police making demands that were the start of the harassment to the place, the owner, and its patrons.

The Police demanded that there was to be no male-male dancing, no minors (The clubs licensing would have allowed minors), no drag, no groping, and only one person could use the restroom at a time. At first the Patch complied with all the demands, but since there was no longer male-male dancing, the Patch lost nearly all its business. After business plummeted, the Patch reinstated man-man dancing and threatened to take the matter all the way to the supreme court if the police revoked its license. Although they did not revoke the license, the police retaliated in several other ways. They ticketed the cars of patrons that were parked at Shakey’s next door on there own volition, they forced the manager there to sign the complaint they had written up. They regularly stopped into the club, checking IDs, but really only there to intimidate everyone. Mostly though, they were indifferent to the violence that took place. One night there were two drunks beating in the doors of one of the customers cars. The owner of the Patch Lee Glaze and a few customers put them under a citizen’s arrest and called the police. The police refused to charge either man and said that Lee’s citizen’s arrest was unlawful, threatening to charge him and his customers.₁ Another night, three men assaulted gay men walking to the bar while the police looked on with indifference, ignoring the cries for help. Adding further insult, the police arrested one of the men who were assaulted claiming he was one of the assailants. He was later released when his friend vouched for him. Bigots were led to believe that their violence against the LGBT community was police sanctioned. The police refused to do anything about it so it unofficially was.₂

After the Patch reinstated male-male dancing, owner Lee Glaze did an interview with George Robeson where he mentioned, “some of the most disliked activities of homosexuals.₁” The interview was published, and the column got the attention of the Parent Teacher Association. The PTA began circulating petitions to have the Patch closed. Lee Glaze responded with anti-picket pickets in front of the patch with some of his customers. The final in the trifecta of alphabet soup combating the Patch was the American Federation of Musicians. The AFM added to the fight after finding a band of union members playing at the club having not filled out the proper union paperwork. The rest of this story is hard to make out but in short, the union denied the Patches offers and began picketing once a nonunion band was found performing at the club. Lee Glaze hired the bands he wanted and again had anti-picket pickets.₁

A year prior to Stonewall, the Patch led a peaceful march on the LAPD.₃ On August 17^th police entered the Patch and began checking IDs and intimidating those in the club. Lee Glaze went on stage during this, as he usually did, and urged the patrons to stand up for their rights. He said, “It’s not against the law to be a homosexual, and it’s not a crime to be in a gay bar.₄” In most gay clubs during the 1960s, mere police presence was enough for people to file out of the club. Hardly anyone left during this interruption. Two men were arrested during this raid and manager and owner Lee Glaze announced the Patch would furnish a bail bondsman and a lawyer for the two men. After returning from the police station to learn more about the charges, he asked if anyone in the bar owned a flower shop. A man did and Lee said, “Go clean it out, I want to buy all your flowers.” Then many of the bar patrons marched to the police station with an assortment of flowers (No Pansies) to greet the two arrested.₄ “One flower hits me, and you’re going to be charged with assault of a police officer.₃” The police purposefully delayed the release of the two men for hours, but the crowd waited. When they were released at 5 and 5:30 AM they were swiftly covered in bouquets.₄

Troy D. Perry was a regular customer of the Patch and enjoyed dancing with his friend Tony Valdez, they were both there on August 17^th. He recalled, “When Lee said, “There’s something around here I’m allergic to, and it’s giving me an itch,” his words were an obvious signal that plainclothesmen had infiltrated the premises. A bar owner could be arrested for breaking police cover, but Lee never refrained. His reply to angry officers was, “You’re not here to do anything but harass us!₅”” During the raid that night, Tony Valdez was arrested for lewd and lascivious conduct along with a man named Bill who had slapped Tony on the butt like football players do. Troy took part in the march on the police station and took Tony home afterwards. Once they got to Troy’s house, “Tony began reflecting on something that had particularly galled him in jail. “You know,” he said, “there was a Chicano cop in there, talking to me through the bars, in Spanish. He called me a puto, a male whore, and he said he was going to call where I work and tell my boss there’s a puto working for him!”... “I felt like a freak in a sideshow…₅” Tony resigned himself to believing nobody cares about them and their community, Troy replied with “God Cares.” Tony rebuffed him and mentioned how he was banned from Sunday school after coming out to his priest at 15. This left Troy to think about his beliefs and how the church treated the LGBT community. He thought there should be a place of worship for those of his community to be open about their sexuality. Rev. Troy D Perry founded the UFMCC, the Metropolitan Community Church. A religious group that accepts homosexuality.₅