D.C. lost yet another LGBTQ nightlife venue on Tuesday with the announcement that Cobalt, located at 1639 R St. NW, has closed its doors for good.
Owner Eric Little confirmed the closure in a message posted to the club’s Facebook page.
“It’s no secret that the building that housed Cobalt and the adjacent property recently sold,” Little wrote. “With the combination of the sale of the buildings, the start of demolition, costly infrastructure repairs and upgrades that we would need to shoulder to remain open for the short remainder of our lease (without an opportunity to extend the lease) along with a slow decline in sales we decided it was the right time to close the business to focus on our other businesses and some personal family needs.”
Even prior to Little’s announcement, speculation about the club’s fate had swirled for weeks, and hit fever-pitch after a photo was posted to Facebook showing the club’s main entrance door with a sign reading “CLOSED FOR WATER PROLBEMS” (sic) posted on the glass.
In the Facebook post, Little thanked the customers and staff who contributed to the club during its two-decade run, saying he was proud of Cobalt’s legacy.
“The gay bar industry has been changing over the past few years with the popularity of dating apps, changing social norms, and pop-up parties/events at non-gay venues and we applaud these evolutions as positive progress,” Little wrote. “And it is our hope that patrons will encourage these businesses to support the greater LGBT community to continue the good work and social change that Cobalt and all of the many other gay bars, restaurants, and businesses (past and present) have worked so hard to achieve.
“We understand the property will be redeveloped into residential use and we wish the new building owners and future residents the best of success and hope that the buildings will bring them all as much joy and happiness as it has brought the entire Cobalt family.”
It might seem like another summer of Gay Sex Panic.
News earlier this month from New York of a rare, drug-resistant fungal infection in a gay man follows Summer 2022’s Mpox mayhem and Summer 2021’s oceanside outbreak of COVID in the wake of Bear Week in Provincetown, Mass.
Before anyone runs for the hypochondriac hills, however, clinicians are advising that the “First case of rare, sexually transmitted form of ringworm reported in the U.S.,” as NBC puts it, may be a bit more challenging than garden-variety jock itch, but shouldn’t conjure fungal-apocalypse fears worthy of The Last of Us.
An Idaho bar is rabidly trolling the LGBTQ community by celebrating "Heterosexual Awesomeness Month" throughout the month of June, during which it will offer specials to patrons who identify as heterosexual.
The Old State Saloon, in the city of Eagle, announced in a May 29 Facebook post it would offer the promotion throughout June, which the LGBTQ community recognizes as Pride Month.
"June will be OSS's inaugural Heterosexual Awesomeness Month!" the post reads. "Come join us all month to celebrate heterosexuals, for without them, none of us would be here!"
Robert Davis pleaded guilty earlier this week to the murder of gay journalist Josh Kruger. He has been sentenced to 15 to 30 years in prison.
Prosecutors claim Davis entered the 39-year-old Kruger's home in Philadelphia's Point Breeze neighborhood last October and shot him seven times before fleeing.
Kruger managed to call for help before stumbling outside his house and collapsing on the sidewalk. He was taken by police to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Earlier this year, Davis waived his right to a preliminary hearing and indicated that he intended to plead guilty to charges related to Kruger's death, as well as to charges of aggravated assault and illegal gun possession for an unrelated incident in which he fired a gun at someone at a SEPTA train platform last September. No one was injured in that incident.
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