The Minneapolis City Council is considering ordinances that would allow bathhouses back in the city after a nearly 40-year ban.
What are bathhouses?
Adult bathhouses community space historically frequented by gay men where people could also engage in sexual activity or relax after the bars.
They were also a cheap place to spend the night, as they were open for 24 hours. For some, they would go bathhouses to escape unsafe situations at home.
In 1988 Minneapolis passed an ordinance to ban bathhouses. There were three bathhouses that existed: Hennepin Baths, Locker Room Baths and Big Daddy’s Bath House. All closed prior to the ban. Locker Room Baths was known as the 315 Health Club at the time of closure.
Why were they banned?
After the first positive HIV test in Minneapolis in 1982, concern grew about the spread of the virus. While the ordinance and others put blame on bathhouses for contributing to the spread of HIV, some health experts at the time said closing the venues did more harm than good.
A community health department study by Hennepin County done at the request of the council showed that adult bathhouses and LGBTQ+ bars were providing patrons with sexual health education like condoms and HIV tests. In the current day, many adult bathhouses in other cities have kept this at the forefront of their business model.
The study reads: “Closing one facility type or another is unlikely to drastically affect transmissibility of the AIDS virus — since the behavior will continue while the person changes location. The key is behavior change, which public policy needs to be addressing — for the use of both heterosexuals as well as homosexuals."
In 1979, three years before the first positive HIV test in Minneapolis, police regularly raided bathhouses. At the time, the city also had laws against “sodomy,” which advocates say were used to arrest patrons.
In November of that year, police ticketed more than 100 men, including arresting nine for the then felony of sodomy. Advocates say it is the single largest gay bathhouse raid in U.S. history.
Local LGBTQ+ historians say the 1979 raid — combined with ones that followed, city redevelopment, gentrification, homophobia and the rise of the AIDS epidemic — contributed to the closures and, later, the ordinance.
Brian Coyle: Influence and legacy
At the time, Brian Coyle, the first out gay city council member, was in favor of bathhouses. That slowly changed as historians say he found himself in the middle at a time when there wasn’t a lot known about HIV and AIDS.
Communities were scared and this fear contributed to public opposition to bathhouses. Coyle died of AIDS in 1991.
Noah Barth, a queer public historian and exhibit developer, went through Coyle’s papers at the Minnesota Historical Society.
“You see all this feedback that he's getting from community members, people who are calling in, and his secretary is leaving notes about, ‘So and so called, they're in favor of the bathhouse ban,’ ‘So and so called, they're not in favor,’” he said. “It's very easy to see how his head and heart were split on this topic.”
There have been attempts in the past to have the 1988 ordinance updated, and in 2023, the Safer Sex Spaces Coalition was successful in removing what they called harmful language from the ordinance. While bathhouses are still banned in the city, the coalition members believe they are close to getting this changed.
Why is the council considering reopening bathhouses?
In March the council members signaled they were open to considering changes to the current ordinance.
Advocates like Claire Kingstad and Ben Carrier, the creators of the Safer Sex Spaces Coalition, support the council’s consideration of the proposed changes. They say the world is different now and the current ordinance needs to be revisited.
“We don’t necessarily look back at the codes that we’ve adopted and revisit them and be like is this still what we need. I think this is something we don’t need if it doesn’t match our current public health landscape,” Carrier said. “They’re places where people can explore different sexual experiences, know themselves better and meet people.”
While places like New York and San Francisco are considered LGBTQ+ capitals of the nation, historians say there was a rich and expanding industry for places like adult bathhouses in the Twin Cities and until the 1979 raid, they went largely unmonitored by police departments.
Compared to other major cities, Minneapolis is an outlier by not having bathhouses. Numerous cities across the nation including Chicago; Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Cleveland, Ohio; Berkeley, Calif.; Dallas, Texas, and more have them. And a bit to the north, Duluth also has one.
The council is expected to forward a series of directives to city staff on Thursday that would decriminalize and legalize adult bathhouses and sex venues and introduce zoning and health ordinances. A final vote is expected in June after a public hearing.
