It once connected to a restaurant (in the space that is now the dance floor), which Davis recalls going to as a child. Many Telegraph Avenue neighbors had no idea the White Horse was even a gay bar. If they did, he’d hit them with the ruler and say, “No touchy.” “They could also close the gay bar just for physical touching, and things like that would put you right out of business.”Īccording to the White Horse website, rumor has it that in the 1950s, a bartender would walk around the bar with a ruler to make sure no one was getting too close to each other. “Back then, they would pass you off to jail and your name would be published in the paper and you would be fired ,” said now-owner Chuck Davis. in Oakland, is the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the United States. At the time, same-gender sex was a felony. The place feels so bubbly and carefree now, it’s difficult to imagine the secretive, fearful atmosphere of the White Horse in its early days. It’s familiar and unpretentious in the way only old bars can be - in fact, open since 1933, it claims to be the oldest continuously operating gay bar in the country. “It’s making me emotional.”įollowing California’s recent reopening, Oakland’s White Horse is the sort of place people flock to. “I can’t believe there’s so many people,” she says, shaking her head in disbelief.
