Gay bars and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States

Abstract

What was the impact on gay bars of COVID-19 public closure orders? Gay bars were already quite vulnerable, retaining only 63.4% of their business listings from 2007 to 2019. Historic data from printed business guides were supplemented with a national census of online business listings. Results show that gay bar listings retained only 84.9% of their number between 2019 and Spring 2021. This compares, however, to a 85.6% retention rate for 2017 and 2019, indicating a surprisingly stable rate of decline. Among subtypes of gay bars, those serving primarily men had higher retention rates (88.4%) than the total from 2019 to 2021, while bars serving people of color (76.3%) and men cruising for sex (54.1%) were retained at much lower rates. Remarkably, 100% of lesbian bars were retained. Overall, the rate of decline in gay bar listings continued apace during, if not necessarily increasingly because of, the COVID-19 pandemic.