NEW YORK, (WRGB) — Senator Erik Bottcher and Assemblymember Tony Simone introduced a bill in the assembly to repeal a statewide ban on adult saunas and bathhouses. They said the decision from 1985 is an outdated response to the HIV\/AIDS epidemic and the sexual acts have continued in the shadows ever since.<\/p>\n
One such place was the River Street Club in Troy. Before closing in July, Jack Daddy, the founder of Jacks Capital Region, New York, told CBS6’s Anthony Krolikowski it was one of the few sex-positive gay bathhouses left in the state where adult play was being had.<\/p>\n
“We were holding monthly events at the River Street Club. Jacks, during the AIDS crisis, was a way for people to still come together and commune sexually while choosing a safer sex,” said the founder of the self-pleasure chapter. He elaborated on how the private men’s club provided space for people to hookup.<\/p>\n
Alan, once employed at the club, said it wasn’t a free-for-all. “Once a month, they came in and they did testing and they would let you know, say, syphilis is on the up or gonorrhea is on the up. There was always something on the up that was starting to go around again.”<\/p>\n
Supporters of adult saunas and bathhouses compared them to alternative hook up options that the LGBTQ+ community views as dangerous and are also illegal out in the open.<\/p>\n
“If we don’t have spaces like this, what we’re doing is we’re driving people into allies and drive-offs,” described Chris Dancy, founder of FulMont Pride. “We have someplace out here in Montgomery County called Pickle Park. To this day it’s called Pickle Park and this is not safe for a trucker or a group of truckers or anyone else to be on apps such as Sniffies or Grindr telling to meet people at Pickle Park.”<\/p>\n
The elected officials proposing this legislation from New York City say the ban would be replaced with a public health framework. “They could connect patrons to testing and treatment, conduct inspections, address legitimate health concerns,” listed Senator Bottcher.<\/p>\n
“These things are already happening in many parts of New York State and in New York City,” said Assemblymember Simone. “We’ve heard from constituents and we’ve heard from business owners that right now they’re unregulated.”<\/p>\n
CBS6’s Anthony Krolikowski reached out to state and county health departments for their stances on adult saunas and bathhouses. The State DOH responded with the following:<\/p>\n
“The Department does not comment on pending legislation.”<\/p>\n
When the Carmella Mantello administration was asked about River Street Club and the proposed legislation, it seemed to not be aware of local bathhouse or sauna activity. Two code enforcement officers and a police officer were seen at the building checking on the property, which closed its doors on July 12 due to financial reasons among others. Mayor Mantello and her team are described as being generally supportive of the proposed law if it does lead to a safer and healthier environment that aligns with today’s health codes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, (WRGB) — Senator Erik Bottcher and Assemblymember Tony Simone introduced a bill in the assembly to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10],"class_list":["post-321644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=321644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/321644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=321644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=321644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=321644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}