Just out., June 07, 1996, Page 21, Image 21

j u s t o u t ▼ ju n o 7 . 1 0 0 6 ▼ 21
id you know that Madonna came here
and DJ’ed for a while when she was
in Portland filming Body o f Evi­
dence?”
This, I tell my twentysomething
host, a young gay man who was touring me
through The City Nightclub, is a cinematic tidbit
of which I was unaware.
“1 guess she wasn’t easily recognizable be­
cause of the way she was dressed, but she came to
the door and Lanny recognized her and swept her
up into the DJ booth and let her spin some tunes.”
His story certainly wouldn’t surprise me. Af­
ter all, The City, an alcohol-free establishment
catering largely to queer youth in their teens and
early 20s, seemed like the kind of place the
Material Girl would be attracted to.
At Northwest 13th Avenue just off Burnside,
The City Nightclub is situated in a slightly off-
the-beaten-track, somewhat intimidating (to the
uninitiated) locale, surrounded by copious ce­
ment and looming warehouses. The street, pocked
with railway tracks, is less than inviting to one’s
suburban sedan. As with so much of queer cul­
ture, the club’s energetic music is often cutting
edge, as is its clientele.
“Lanny!” shouts my guide when Lanny
Swerdlow, the club’s owner, walks by. He stops.
“I was just telling Inga about the time Madonna
came here.”
Swerdlow, a balding middle-aged man who
has been operating dubs geared toward sexual
minority youth for 15 years, offers a blank stare
before setting the record straight: “She was never
here. That’s not true at all. That didn’t happen.”
My sweet and buoyant guide deflates a tad, but
quickly shrugs off the bad news with a smile.
“Rumors,” he says. “Sometimes they get going.
You know?”
elcome to the world of The City Night­
club, occasional rumor mill and a place
that is heralded by supporters as a life­
line for queer youth, particularly those who hail
from difficult circumstances: young people who
have been kicked out onto the streets by unforgiv­
ing adults, kids who have struggled against many
forms of abuse and neglect.
Detractors, however, view The City as a nest
for unrestrained drug activity and predatory ma­
neuvering by trolls (older men seeking sex with
underage youth) eager to make the most of the
club’s supposed vulnerable populace.
The City of Portland seems to be towing the
latter line, and has taken aggressive action to close
the club down. This past December, Senior Deputy
City Attorney Nancy E. Ayres, filed a civil suit
against the building’s owner, ADS Investment
Limited Partnership, which could force the evic­
tion of tenant Swerdlow’s City Nightclub.
The suit maintains that the club violates the
city’s Specified Crime Property Ordinance, more
loosely known as the “drug house” ordinance,
that bars the use of a building for the distribution
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of a controlled substance.
Bolstering the city’s contention are affidavits
from Portland police officers who say they inves­
tigated the club from April to October of last year.
According to published reports, Portland police
officer Robert Hollins, via his affidavit, stated he
observed “what appeared to be drug transactions
and possible prostitution activity,” while working
undercover. He further stated that he purchased
drugs at the club and encountered more than a
dozen drug dealers there.
On June 6, the day Just Out went to press, the
judicial wheels starting turning: It was the same
day the Multnomah County District Court was to
hear arguments for a summary judgment in the
case.
o hear Swerdlow tell it, he’s basically just a
guy who gave a shit about kids who nearly
everyone else turned their backs to.
Swerdlow, a longtime neighborhood and com­
munity activist, has been operating for-profit so­
cial venues geared toward queer youth since the
1970s.
“Hundreds of gay and lesbian young people
used to hang every weekend night near Third and
Southwest Yamhill simply because there was no
place for them to go,” says Swerdlow, adding that
the spot was known as Camp, and its presence was
unsettling to surrounding businesses and city of­
ficials.
In J977, Swerdlow opened a no-alcohol club
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called Mildred’s Palace, located in what was then
called the Pythian Building at 918 Southwest
Yamhill.
“It got rid of the problem of all the kids
handing around at Third and Yamhill,” he says.
“The kids finally had a place where they could go.
Everyone was grateful.”
M ildred’s Palace eventually closed, and
Swerdlow opened Metropolis at Southwest Third
and Burnside. It too closed, but in the summer of
1983, Swerdlow opened The City Nightclub at
Northwest 13th.
Swerdlow says hundreds, if not thousands, of
sexual minority youth who have passed through
The City’s doors over the past 13 years have
encountered a sense of solace and community not
found elsewhere.
He also claims that Portland police have ha­
rassed him and his establishments over the years,
due largely to homophobia. Swerdlow says he
was beaten by Portland police in 1980, and in
1989 he says The City Nightclub was “illegally
raided” by a band of public officials from the
city’s Police Bureau, Fire Marshall’s Office, Bu­
reau of Buildings, and Oregon Liquor Control
Commission.
He says things got a little better during the
tenure of former Police Chief Tom Potter, a friend
of the gay and lesbian community. And in 1992,
Swerdlow and Potter even signed a partnership
agreement that called upon police and Swerdlow
to work cooperatively to keep the club clean and
safe, and to identify problems involving potential
criminal activities at the club and to arrest the
offenders.
According to Swerdlow, “In a written agree­
ment, the police had promised they would assign
all surveillance of The City Nightclub to Central
Precinct, promptly let me know of any surveil­
lance activities, and make immediate arrests for
any drug violation. Instead, over six months, they
assigned surveillance operations to Drug and Vice,
concealed the operations from me, and—by hold­
ing back from arresting drug sellers—they made
The City Nightclub appear to be a safe haven. The
police utilized the results to persuade city offi­
cials to seek closure of The City Nightclub under
the Specified Crime Property ordinance.”
Swerdlow says if he had been told about the
problem, he would have taken action. But he was
never informed, he says, and out of the blue he
received written notice that the City of Portland
was taking legal action.
“Other clubs have problems, too, but nothing
is being done about them,” says Swerdlow, point­
ing to the Quest, an under-21 club in Southwest
Portland that attracts a straighter crowd.
Swerdlow and others say that club has been
the site of gang-related violence, including, says
the alternative weekly PDXS in its May 24 issue,
"stabbings, at least one shooting, and a full-blown
riot which required a massive police response to
stop. Instead of closing the Quest, however, the
police helped line up extra security for the club,
which is still in business.”
e did not target The City Nightclub be­
cause the folks who go there are pre­
dominantly gay,” counters Bruce Prunk,
a Portland Police Bureau assistant chief and the
designated liaison to the city’s sexual minorities
Continued on page 23
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