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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 7, 2000)
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Flanders • #207 Portland _ y Westover ghts Clinic Your Source for PALM SPRINGS Real Estate G u rn ey Group A professional team approach to Palm Springs area real estate with the resources to match your lifestyle with the right property. vr T im G ilb e rt T a r b e ll n P r e fe r r e d *4 ft i da!” And then six months went by, then a year, then a year and a half... Finally, on Dec. 21, 1999— nearly two years after the raids— the FBI freed Swerdlow s video accouterments, though it is still holding onto his computers. No arrests were made, and FBI Special Agent Gordon Compton told the media: “I have no indication that charges will be filed in the near future, but the investigation is still ongoing.” n this more peaceful morning, Swerdlow welcomes Just Out into his home. He’s just spent several weeks in California helping his dying mother. T he day after this interview, he will again head down to Palm Springs to provide support for his newly widowed father. “Was I surprised?” Swerdlow says when asked about the FBI’s decision to release the videocas settes and equipment worth roughly $15,000. “No, I knew they weren’t going to find any thing. I was always worried they might slip something in, or do something like that, but apparently they didn’t.” According to Swerdlow, about half the esti mated 400 to 500 confiscated tapes did contain adult pornography. “But they weren’t mine. I have a nice collec tion of about 30 or 40 tapes, but I inherited this place from my friend, and he has a huge collec tion— and it was almost all on Beta— and I don’t even have a working Beta deck,” he chuckles. Swerdlow, a neighborhood and community activist, operated for-profit social venues geared toward gay and lesbian youth since the 1970s. In 1977, he opened an alcohol-free club called Mildred’s Palace, located at 918 S.W. Yamhill St. in Portland. O 130 T rag ranees ■\ T he rumors began spinning frenetically: “This is it for Lanny!” “You should see what’s on those videotapes!" “Lanny and his boyfriend are about to high-tail it to C ana U Jim G urney 211 E. Palm Canyon Drive PROPERTIES" Palm Springs, California 92264 REALTORS' (760)322-1711x336« Voice Mail: (760)416-6939 • Fax (760)325-0763 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,” Swerdlow says. The area was known as Camp, and its pres ence was unsettling to surrounding businesses and city officials. “I got rid o f the problem o f all the kids hang ing around at T hird and Yamhill. Everyone was grateful. You’d think I would’ve been given the key to the city, but nooooo,” Swerdlow says. “W hat I did get was the police coming up to the club busting the kids for curfew. O ne night they came with a paddy wagon and about 12 officers, and it was a literal police riot. I never saw any thing like it .... It wasn’t because of curfew— it was because they hated [the youths] so much because they were gay.” Swerdlow says he went to an attorney to try and stop the police actions. “T h at was the beginning o f their hate rela tionship with me. It’s always been 'Hate Lanny Swerdlow.’ T h ere are people in the police bureau right now who don’t like me but don’t know why,” he says. “It’s sort of like the Hat- field-M cCoy feud. Nobody knows how the feud started. A ll they know is that they’re supposed to be upset with each other.” "There are people in the police bureau right now who don't like me but don't know why. It's sort of like the Hatfield-McCoy feud. Nobody knows how the feud started. All they know is that they're supposed to be upset with each Other. " — Lanny Swerdlow Mildred’s Palace eventually closed, and in the 1980s Swerdlow opened the City Nightclub, a place supporters hailed as a lifeline for queer youths, particularly those who came from diffi cult circumstances. However, detractors— including Portland city officials and the Portland Police Bureau— long maintained the site was a nest for unre strained drug activity and prostitution. Swerdlow countered, charging the Portland police had harassed him and his establishments over the years due largely to homophobia. In 1989, he said, the C ity Nightclub was "illegally raided” by a band o f public officials from the city’s police bureau, fire marshal’s office and Bureau o f Buildings, as well as the Oregon Liquor C ontrol Com m ission. T h e city o f Portland eventually filed a civil suit in late 1995 to close the club under the city’s Specified C rim e Property O rdinance, more loosely known as the “drug house" ordinance, which bars the use o f a building for the distribu tion o f a controlled substance. In Septem ber 1996, Swerdlow sought the