Straights Gone Wild - Are the Castro’s Complaints Hypocrisy?

By: Scott James

On Sundays the outside balcony at the Lookout bar in the Castro is so crowded it looks like the Abercrombie & Fitch version of the Mariel boatlift. Spirited patrons, mostly gay men, are known to shout out ratings of pedestrians as they cross the intersection below at Noe and Market – as if passing judgment, a la “Dancing with the Stars.”

“Eight!” the crowd hooted as an attractive man passed.

Fueled by alcohol, it’s all in good fun (well, except for those who get a “three!”). Forget attending church, in this part of the city named for St. Francis Sundays are for daydrinking.

So why all the fuss about another booze bash across the street at club Lime? As I report in my column this week, there’s been a litany of complaints against boisterous behavior at Lime’s “bottomless Mimosas” Sunday brunches.

Is it because the Sunday patrons at Lime are, to a large extent, straight? Is there a double standard?

There might be some of that. In reporting this story I’ve had several Castro neighbors sneer at some of the women at Lime who come to brunch in high, high heels and short, short, short skirts. Yet when a drag queen walks by in a similar outfit, it doesn’t provoke a reaction.

In fact, folks in the Castro openly accept behavior that would be banned elsewhere. The nude old men for one thing. They’ve been hanging out in the hood for years, and the only ones who make a big deal out of them are occasional visiting journalists on the hunt for arousing column inches. To the locals, the nudies are a yawn.

Then there are a few scattered sex shops that aren’t shy about displaying their wares in window displays. They only get attention from outsiders, like when a group of second graders were recently taken on a field trip into the Castro to learn about Harvey Milk and area’s historical significance.

Some parents later objected (to the news media), fearing students saw those X-rated window displays. Actually, only children with their parents’ permission went, and the school made sure the field trip stayed on a narrow path of historical landmarks. Apparently the ruckus was started by a disgruntled parent who’s in a dispute with the school and wanted to embarrass administrators by calling a local news organization and planting the story of 8-year-olds touring dildo displays.

That never happened, but the Castro community responded to the controversy pretty bluntly: if you don’t like the way we roll here, stay away.

The one thing folks in the Castro won’t tolerate is intolerance.

So there’s some irony in the pushback against the Sunday scene at club Lime. The crowd is more heterosexual than other places in the neighborhood, and customers tend to come in from outside the area (if Yelp reviews are any indication, half of San Jose has been to the brunch).

Are gays being intolerant of straights? Wouldn’t that be hypocritical, considering all the intolerance and hate gay people have faced?

Maybe there should be some soul searching about that. After all, the last business to cause such an uproar in the Castro was Ike’s Place, the sandwich shop that also attracted large crowds of outsiders who also happened to be mostly heterosexual. Trend?

To be sure, sexual orientation aside, there have been problems surrounding Lime on Sundays. (For a list of issues tracked over several weeks, read the column.) Some weekends you could shoot a video for “Straights Gone Wild,” and residents are particularly irked when they see guys from the club peeing on the walls of nearby homes and businesses. Neighbors say it’s like watching heterosexuals marking their territory.

And in the Castro, that is going too far.